THE 
PIANOLIST 

BY 

GUSTAV 
KOBBE 


M 

•:-'••;  :-/'-.•• 

••:>'•:'••'.:•?:''•:•' 


UCSB   L/BR^ 


THE   PIANOLIST 


THE  PIANOLIST 


A  GUIDE  FOR   PIANOLA   PLAYERS 


GUSTAV  KOBBE 

AUTHOR  OF  "HOW  TO  APPRECIATE  MUSIC,"   ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD   &   COMPANY 

1907 


COPYRIGHT  1907,  BY 

MOFFAT,  YARD   &  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


Published  November,  1907 


TO  MY  FRIEND 
JOSEPH   HUTCHISON   STEVENSON 


CONTENTS 


I.    THE  TITLE  AND  PURPOSE  OF  THIS 

BOOK i 

II.    THE  CHARM  OF  PLAYING  A  MUSI- 
CAL INSTRUMENT  YOURSELF.  . .     10 

III.  FIRST    STEPS    OF  THE     MUSICAL 

NOVICE 39 

IV.  THE  THRILL  OF  THE  GREAT  MAS- 

TERS      83 

V.    AN  "  OPEN  SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN.  .   117 

VI.    NOTES  ON  SOME  OTHER  MASTERS.    141 
VII.    EDUCATIONAL  FACTORS 150 

VIII.    A  FEW  "  DON'TS  "  FOR  PIANOLISTS  159 


vn 


I.     THE  TITLE  AND   PURPOSE  OF 
THIS    BOOK 

MY  book,  "  How  to  Appreciate  Music," 
in  the  chapter  devoted  to  the  piano- 
forte, contains  a  paragraph  relating  to  the 
Pianola  and  its  influence  in  popularizing 
music  and  stimulating  musical  taste.  I  con- 
fess that  before  I  started  that  paragraph  I 
was  puzzled  to  know  what  term  to  use  in 
designating  the  instrument  I  had  in  mind. 
"  Mechanical  piano-player "  is  a  designa- 
tion which  not  only  does  not  appeal  to  me, 
but,  furthermore,  fails  to  do  justice  to  the 
instrument,  which,  although  mechanical  in 
its  working,  is  far  from  being  mechanical 
in  its  effects. 

The  result? — I  took  a  cross  cut  and  ar- 
rived straight  at  the  word  Pianola  as  being 
the  name  of  the  most  widely  known  piano- 


THE  PIANOLIST 

player,  and  happily  derived  from  the  name 
of  the  most  widely  known  instrument,  the 
pianoforte  or,  as  it  is  more  popularly  termed, 
the  piano.  For  this  reason  the  term  Pianola 
was  used  in  the  paragraph  referred  to  and 
now  is  employed  in  this  book;  and,  for  the 
same  reason,  this  book  is  called  "  The  Pian- 
olist."  It  is  believed  to  be  the  title  least  re- 
quiring explanation,  if,  indeed,  it  requires 
any  explanation  at  all.  Right  here,  how- 
ever, I  must  add  that  the  company  which 
manufactures  the  Pianola  objects  to  the  use 
of  the  word  as  a  generic  term. 

So  much  for  the  title.  Now  for  the  pur- 
pose of  this  book. 

Soon  after  the  publication  of  "  How  to 
Appreciate  Music "  I  discovered  that  the 
paragraph  concerning  this  new  musical  in- 
strument had  made  a  hit.  It  was  widely 
quoted  as  evidence  of  the  "  up-to-dateness " 
of  the  book  and  I  began  to  receive  letters 
2 


TITLE  AND   PURPOSE 

from  pianola  owners  who  were  pleased  that 
the  merits  of  the  instrument  should  have 
been  recognized  in  a  serious  book  on  music. 
Among  these  was  a  letter  from  a  Mr.  Harry 
Mason,  of  Detroit,  suggesting  that  I  should 
write  a  book  for  the  use  of  those  who  owned 
piano-players.  Mr.  Mason  and  myself  never 
have  met.  He  knows  me  merely  as  an  au- 
thor of  a  book  on  music.  All  I  know  of 
him  is  that  he  is  one  of  the  editors  of  a  drug- 
gists' trade  paper  in  Detroit.  Yet  from  him 
has  come  the  suggestion  which  has  led  me  to 
write  this  book,  although,  to  judge  from  his 
letter,  he  had  not  been  deeply  interested  in 
music  until  he  began  to  use  a  "  player  "  and, 
through  it,  was  led  to  ask  for  a  book  which 
would  tell  him,  in  untechnical  language, 
something  about  an  art  that  was  beginning 
to  have  eloquence  and  meaning  for  him. 
To  me  this  is  highly  significant,  for  there 
must  be  thousands  of  others  like  him  all 

3 


THE  PIANOLIST 

over  the  country,  to  whom,  in  the  same  way, 
the  great  awakening  just  is  coming  through 
the  pianola — at  first  a  means  of  amusement, 
then  an  educator  with  the  element  of  amuse- 
ment, but  of  a  higher  order,  left  in! 

Shortly  after  I  received  Mr.  Mason's  let- 
ter an  incident  added  greatly  to  the  force 
of  his  suggestion.  I  always  have  been  very 
fond  of  Schubert's  "  Rosamunde "  im- 
promptu. The  first  person  I  heard  play 
it  publicly  was  Annette  Essipoff,  a  Russian 
pianist  and  one  of  the  very  few  great  women 
pianists  of  the  world.  Frequently  I  have 
heard  it  since  then,  but  never  so  charmingly 
interpreted  excepting — But  that  is  the  most 
interesting  part  of  the  story. 

One  night  I  was  at  my  desk  in  my  study, 
when,  suddenly,  I  heard  the  strains  of  this 
impromptu,  which  is  an  air  with  variations, 
from  the  direction  of  the  drawing  room.  It 
was  sweet  and  tender,  graceful  and  expres- 

4 


TITLE  AND   PURPOSE 

sive,  according  to  the  character  of  the  varia- 
tions; and,  when  the  last  variation  began 
with  a  crispness  and  delicacy  that  made  me 
wonder  what  great  virtuoso  was  at  my  piano- 
forte without  my  knowing  it,  I  hurried  to 
the  drawing  room  and,  entering  it — found 
my  fourteen  year  old  daughter  seated  at  a 
pianola.  The  instrument  had  arrived  only 
a  short  time  before  from  the  house  of  a 
friend  who  had  gone  South  for  the  winter. 
My  daughter  never  had  had  a  music  lesson, 
never  had  heard  Schubert's  "  Rosamunde  " 
impromptu.  Yet  she  had,  without  any  ef- 
fort, been  the  first  to  take  me  back  to  Essi- 
poffs  playing  of  Schubert's  charming  work! 
It  would  have  been  ludicrous  had  it  not 
meant  so  much.  In  fact  it  was  ludicrous 
because,  a  few  days  before,  when  the  instru- 
ment had  just  been  delivered  and  set  up,  I 
had  been  deceived  in  much  the  same  man- 
ner by  her  playing  of  a  composition  by 
Grieg. 

5 


THE  PIANOLIST 

But  to  return  to  the  Schubert  impromptu. 
EssipofT,  my  young  daughter,  the  associate 
editor  of  a  druggist'  paper  in  Detroit,  and 
myself;  the  first  a  great  virtuoso,  the  second 
a  schoolgirl,  the  third  a  writer  on  a  trade 
paper,  the  fourth  a  music  critic — what  a 
leveller  of  distinctions,  what  a  universal  mus- 
ical provider  the  pianola  is!  Ten  years  ago 
the  virtuoso  and  the  music  critic  would  have 
been  the  only  ones  concerned.  The  school- 
girl and  the  trade  paper  editor  wouldn't 
have  been  "  in  it."  Now,  the  schoolgirl  was 
playing  like  a  virtuoso  and  the  writer  on 
drugs  and  druggists  was  giving  hints  to  the 
music  critic.  A  great  leveller,  placing  the 
musical  elect  and  those  who  formerly  would 
have  had  to  remain  outside  the  pale,  on  a 
common  footing!  This  may  not  always  ap- 
peal to  the  musical  elect,  but  think  what  it 
means  to  the  great  mass  of  those  who  are 
genuinely  musical  but  have  lacked  the  op- 
6 


TITLE  AND   PURPOSE 

portunity  for  musical  study  or  to  those  whose 
taste  for  music  never  has  been  brought  out. 

To  paraphrase  a  few  sentences  from  my 
"  How  to  Appreciate  Music  "  that  have  been 
much  quoted: — 

"'Are  you  musical?' 

"  '  No,'  nine  persons  out  of  ten  will  reply; 
1  I  neither  play  nor  sing.' 

"  *  Your  answer  shows  a  complete  mis- 
understanding of  the  case.  Because  you 
neither  play  nor  sing,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  you  are  unmusical.  If  you  love  music 
and  appreciate  it,  you  may  be  more  musical 
than  many  pianists  and  singers;  or  latent 
within  you  and  only  awaiting  the  touchstone 
of  music  there  may  be  a  deeper  love  and  ap- 
preciation of  the  art  than  can  be  attributed 
to  many  virtuosos.  For  most  of  a  virtuoso's 
love  and  appreciation  is  apt  to  be  centered 
upon  himself.  And  when  you  say,  '  I  can- 
not play,'  you  are  mistaken.  You  are  think- 

7 


THE   PIANOLIST 

ing  of  the  pianoforte.  You  may  not  be  able 
to  play  that.  But  you  or  any  one  else  can 
play  the  pianola,  and  that  instantly  places 
at  your  command  all  the  technical  resources 
of  which  even  the  greatest  virtuosos  can 
boast." 

One  purpose  of  this  book  thus  is  to  bring 
home  to  people  an  appreciation  of  what  this 
modern  instrument  is,  whether  it  is  regarded 
as  a  toy  with  which  the  business  man  amuses 
himself  with  two-steps  and  ragtime  after 
business  hours,  or  as  a  serious  musical  instru- 
ment. 

Another  purpose,  and  a  large  one,  is  to 
furnish  pianolists  with  a  guide  to  the  music 
which  they  play,  or  might  play  if  their  at- 
tention were  directed  to  it  and  to  some  of  its 
characteristics,  and  to  point  out  the  impor- 
tance of  the  instrument  in  developing  a  love 
of  good  music. 

I  also  have  in  writing  this  book  a  purpose 
8 


TITLE  AND   PURPOSE 

which  I  may  describe  as  personal.  I  believe 
I  was  the  first  American  to  publish  an  anal- 
ysis of  the  Wagner  music  dramas  that  seemed 
to  be  what  the  public  wanted,  and  the  first 
to  contribute  to  a  magazine  of  general  circu- 
lation an  article  on  Richard  Strauss.  It  is 
a  matter  of  pride  with  me  always  to  be  found 
on  the  firing  line — even  if  it  is  the  privilege 
of  those  who  watch  the  battle  from  a  safe 
distance  to  dictate"  the  despatches  and  take 
the  credit  for  the  result  to  themselves.  And 
so,  I  wish  to  be  the  first  to  write  a  book  on 
the  pianola,  an  instrument  of  such  impor- 
tance to  the  progress  and  popular  spread  of 
music  that,  at  the  present  time,  we  can  have 
but  a  faint  glimmering  of  the  great  part  it 
is  destined  to  play. 


II.  THE  CHARM  OF  PLAYING 
A  MUSICAL  INSTRUMENT  YOUR- 
SELF 

T  TOW  I  wish  I  could  play  like  that! 
•*•  •*•  What  is  more  common  than  this 
exclamation  from  people  who  are  listen- 
ing to  a  great  virtuoso  or  even  only  to  a 
fairly  clever  amateur?  They  realize  that, 
no  matter  how  much  they  may  enjoy  a  per- 
formance, there  is  much  greater  fascination 
in  being  the  performer.  Not  a  musical  per- 
son but  would  play  if  he  could.  Why,  how- 
ever, that  "if"?  It  no  longer  exists.  It 
has  been  eliminated.  The  charm,  the  fasci- 
nation of  playing  a  musical  instrument  your- 
self can  be  yours,  and  the  only  "  if  "  to  it 
is — if  you  have  intelligence  enough  to  appre- 
ciate what  that  means. 

What  formerly  was  an  insuperable  ob- 
stacle, the  lack  of  technical  facility — the  real 
inability  to  play — absolutely  has  been  done 
away  with.  There  is  no  excuse  for  any- 
10 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

body's  not  playing  who  wants  to.  The 
pianola  furnishes  the  technique,  the  dexterity, 
the  finger  facility,  or  whatever  you  may 
choose  to  call  it.  So  far  as  this  is  concerned 
the  instrument  itself  makes  you  a  virtuoso — 
places  you  on  a  par  with  a  Liszt,  Paderewski 
or  Rosenthal.  It  does  so  mechanically,  yet 
without  the  sharpness  and  insistent  precise- 
ness  of  a  machine.  Its  action  is  pneumatic 
and  the  effect  of  the  compressed  air  is  to 
impart  to  its  "  touch  " — the  manner  in  which 
its  "  fingers "  strike  the  keys — an  elasticity 
which  at  least  is  comparable  with  the  touch 
of  human  fingers.  As  a  friend  of  mine, 
a  lawyer,  who  has  owned  three  pianolas  and 
who  actually  has  been  made  musical  through 
them,  expresses  it: — "When  you've  got  a 
mechanical  device  as  good  or  nearly  as  good 
as  a  virtuoso,  you've  got  something  of  enorm- 
ous importance  to  the  whole  world."  And 
so  you  have. 

ii 


THE  PIANOLIST 

I  find  a  great  feature  of  the  so-called  me- 
chanical piano-player  lies  in  what  it  allows 
you  to  do  yourself.  It  provides  you  with 
technique,  but,  to  use  a  colloquial  phrase, 
"  you  can  still  call  your  soul  your  own." 
The  technique,  the  substitute  for  that  finger 
facility  which  only  years  of  practice  will 
give,  is  the  pianola's;  but  the  interpretation 
is  yours!  The  instrument  provides  the  de- 
vices for  accelerating  or  retarding  the  time 
and  for  making  the  tone  loud  or  soft, 
but  when  to  whip  up  the  time  or  to  slow 
down,  when  to  use  the  sustaining  or  the  soft 
lever  or  when  to  swell  through  a  crescendo 
from  pianissimo  to  fortissimo — all  that  is  left 
to  your  own  taste,  judgment  and  discretion. 
There  is,  indeed,  among  the  improvements 
introduced  in  the  pianola  a  contrivance,  of 
which  more  hereafter,  by  which  complete 
directions  are  given  for  the  interpretation  of 
the  roll  of  music  that  is  being  played.  These 

12 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

directions,  however,  are  not  compulsory. 
They  are,  in  each  instance,  based  on  high 
authority  and  are  of  great  value  even  to 
persons  who  are  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  music,  but  they  need  not  be  followed  if 
the  player  does  not  want  to  follow  them. 
He  is  likely  in  the  beginning  to  accept  the 
directions,  the  so-called  metrostyle  mark- 
ing, as  he  would  the  instruction  of  a  high 
class  teacher,  while,  later  on,  he  may  incline 
to  regard  the  metrostyle  as  indicating  the 
general  spirit  in  which  the  piece  should  be 
interpreted,  but  vary  it  in  detail  as  his 
mood  or  fancy  dictates.  The  metrostyle  may, 
in  fact,  be  called  the  pianolist's  "  coach," 
giving  him  the  kind  of  hints  and  directions 
which  even  the  greatest  players  and  singers 
value.  Something,  however,  of  the  pianolist 
himself,  something  of  his  own  thought  and 
feeling  goes  into  every  interpretation.  That 
this  is  so  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  no  two 

13 


THE  PIANOLIST 

pianolists  interpret  the  same  composition 
alike.  There  are  differences,  more  or  less 
marked,  just  as  there  are  when  the  same 
piece  is  played  by  two  pianists.  In  the 
broader  outlines,  in  general  spirit,  the  inter- 
pretations may  be  the  same,  but  they  will  be 
distinguished  by  subtle  shadings  that  indi- 
cate temperamental  differences.  The  per- 
spective of  a  landscape  varies  when  viewed 
from  different  windows;  so  does  life  when 
observed  from  different  points  of  view;  so 
does  the  interpretation  of  a  composition 
when  played  by  different  people  on  the 
pianola. 

Were  the  instrument  purely  a  mechanical 
device  to  wind  up  and  set  going,  the  artistic 
results  of  which  it  is  capable  never  would 
have  been  obtained,  and,  I  may  add,  this 
book  never  would  have  been  written.  The 
fact  that  artistic  expression  instead  of  ma- 
chine-like precision  has  been  its  aim  is  what 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

has  caused  its  possibilities  as  a  musical  in- 
strument to  appeal  to  me.  It  cannot  be 
sufficiently  urged  that  in  this  country,  as  in 
every  other,  there  is  an  immense  amount  of 
latent  musical  taste  awaiting  only  the  touch- 
stone of  hearing  music  or,  better  still,  the 
fascination  of  personally  producing  music, 
to  assert  itself.  Before  the  invention  of  the 
piano-player  hearing  music  was  the  only 
touchstone;  through  the  piano-player  there 
is  added  the  fascination  of  being  yourself  a 
participator  in  prpducing  the  music  you 
hear.  When  Theodore  Thomas  said  "  Noth- 
ing so  awakens  interest  in  music  as  helping 
to  make  it,"  he  hit  the  nail  on  the  head. 
"After  playing  all  this  music  I  want  to  go 
to  concerts  next  winter.  I'd  like  to  hear 
how  the  '  Fifth  Symphony '  sounds  on  the 
orchestra,"  said  my  little  girl  after  the  pia- 
nola had  been  in  the  house  only  a  week. 
"All  this  music?  "  Yes  indeed.  More  than 

15 


THE  PIANOLIST 

she  could  have  become  familiar  with  in  six 
months'  concert-going  and  instruction.  And 
we  always  had  said  that  she  wasn't  musical! 
This  fascination  of  personally  producing 
music  is  such  a  great  factor  in  the  spread  of 
musical  taste  that  it  is  well  worth  looking 
into  further.  There  always  is  more  plea- 
sure in  doing  something  than  in  watching 
some  one  else  do  it.  Take  the  average  ama- 
teurs who  get  together  for  music.  They  en- 
joy what  they  play  a  thousand-fold  more 
than  if  they  were  listening  to  the  greatest 
virtuosos  playing  the  same  program.  Why? 
Because  always  there  is  more  satisfaction  in 
doing  the  thing  itself  than  merely  in  contem- 
plating the  result  of  what  some  one  else  is 
doing.  And  so,  with  music,  "  to  experience 
the  full  fascination  the  divine  art  can  ex- 
ercise on  us  mortals,  we  must  take  an  active 
part  in  the  making  of  it."  Through  the 
pianola  the  opportunity  of  taking  an  active 
16 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

part  in  the  making  of  it  is  open  to  every- 
body. Remember  what  my  friend  said.  It 
is  worth  repeating.  "  When  you've  got  a 
mechanical  device  as  good,  or  nearly  as 
good  as  a  virtuoso,  you've  got  something  of 
enormous  importance  to  the  whole  world." 
Mechanical,  remember,  only  in  a  certain 
sense.  Were  it  wholly  mechanical  it  never 
could  be  "  as  good,  or  nearly  as  good,  as  a 
virtuoso." 

Now  let  us  see  how  this  personal  affilia- 
tion of  pianola  and  pianolist,  of  instrument 
and  player,  has  been  worked  out,  so  that 
the  player  is  not  a  mere  human  treadmill 
pumping  air  into  a  cabinet  on  castors,  but — 
whether  he  be  a  lawyer,  merchant,  financier, 
dressmaker,  milliner,  or  society  leader;  one 
of  the  Four  Hundred  or  one  of  the  eighty 
million — a  musical  artist  with  an  unlimited 
repertory. 

The  pianoforte  is  the  most  universal  mus- 

17 


THE  PIANOLIST 

ical  instrument  of  the  civilized  world.  I 
once  turned  the  old  question,  "  What  is  home 
without  a  mother,"  into  "  What  is  home 
without  a  pianoforte?"  Practically  no 
household  that  makes  claim  to  refinement  is 
without  one.  Only  too  often,  however,  even 
in  such  homes,  it  is  merely  an  article  of 
drawing  room  furniture,  because  no  member 
of  the  household  can  play  it.  There  it 
stands  waiting  for  the  chance  visitor  who 
can  strike  the  keys  and  make  the  strings 
vibrate  with  music. 

Imagine  that  you  are  a  member  or  let 
us  say  the  head  of  that  household.  You  can't 
play  a  note  and  yet  you  are  "  fond  of  music." 
This  "  fondness  for  music  "  manifests  itself 
in  different  degree  in  different  people  and 
somewhat  according  to  their  opportunities. 
You  may  be  a  hardworking  business  man 
and  when  you  come  home  from  business, 
you  want  diversion,  amusement.  For  some 
18 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

one  to  suggest  a  classical  concert  to  you  would 
make  you  feel  like  being  asked  to  begin  the 
day's  work  all  over  again  without  a  night's 
rest  in  between.  As  for  Wagner,  that  would 
be  worse  than  straightening  out  an  intricate 
account  after  a  day  spent  in  poring  over  a 
ledger.  No.  Music  without  any  tune  to 
it  may  be  all  right  for  some  people,  but 
comic  opera  is  "  good  enough "  for  you. 
You  like  that  coon  song  you  heard  the  other 
night.  How  you  would  enjoy  playing  it 
on  the  pianoforte  if  you  only  knew  how! 
But  you  don't,  so  you  have  to  pay  a  specu- 
lator three  dollars  for  a  seat  if  you  want  to 
hear  it  again. 

Suppose  the  days  of  miracles  weren't  past 
and,  by  some  miracle,  you  suddenly  found 
yourself  in  command  of  the  technique  of 
the  pianoforte — able  to  play  whatever  you 
Wanted  to.  You'd  buy  that  coon  song  and 
some  other  pieces  of  light  music,  and  then 

19 


THE  PIANOLIST 

you'd  hurry  home  to  your  pianoforte  and 
play  them  off  as  fast  as  you  could,  while  the 
family  stood  around  and  listened  and  mar- 
velled. 

That  is  precisely  the  miracle  the  pianola 
performs  for  you.  It  gives  you,  from  the 
moment  it  enters  your  house,  control  over 
the  keyboard  of  the  pianoforte  that  so  long 
has  stood  mute  in  your  home.  All  you  have 
to  do  is  to  put  in  the  perforated  music  roll, 
work  the  pedals — and  the  music  begins. 
Supposing  it  is  that  coon  song  from  the 
comic  opera  you  liked  so  much.  The  first 
time  you  play  it,  you  may  be  so  interested 
in  the  instrument's  accurate  reproduction  of 
the  tune  that  you  don't  stop  to  think  of  the 
expression.  The  chances  are,  however,  that 
your  delight  over  what  you  have  accom- 
plished will  lead  you  to  play  the  song  right 
over  again.  Now  you  begin  to  realize  that 
there  was  something  more  than  mere  ac- 
20 


PLAYING   Music  YOURSELF 

curacy  in  the  delivery  of  the  melody  when 
you  heard  it  at  the  theatre.  There  was  in- 
terpretation, that  something  which  the  indi- 
vidual artist  puts  into  everything  he  does. 
You  will  recall  that  while  the  piece  was 
taken  pretty  fast  as  a  whole,  some  phrases 
were  taken  faster,  other  more  slowly.  You 
have  been  told  that  by  moving  a  little  lever 
to  the  right  or  left,  you  can  produce  these 
effects.  You  try  it.  When  you  come  to  a 
phrase  that  should  be  taken  a  little  faster, 
you  move  the  lever  slightly  to  the  right — 
and  the  pianoforte  responds.  It  is  the  same 
when  you  move  the  lever  to  the  left  for  the 
slower  phrases — the  pianoforte  responds  and 
the  phrase  is  retarded.  Two  other  levers 
control  the  volume  of  sound  so  that  you  can 
play  any  part  of  the  piece  louder  or  softer 
if  you  want  to.  It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that 
you  may  vary  these  details  to  suit  yourself, 
instead  of  simply  being  guided  by  your  recol- 

21 


THE  PIANOLIST 

lection  of  what  you  heard  at  the  theatre. 
In  a  word  you  yourself  become  on  the  spot 
an  interpreter  of  music,  put  something  of 
yourself  into  what  you  play.  The  instru- 
ment instead  of  being  merely  a  machine  that 
grinds-  out  music  is  a  machine  only  in  so  far 
as  it  takes  the  place  of  technique,  of  finger 
facility.  The  expression,  the  real  interpre- 
tation, that  which  gives  one  the  fascination 
of  playing,  is  your  own. 

That's  your  first  experience  with  the  in- 
strument. Pretty  soon  you  are  apt  to  have 
another  experience  that  is  even  more  valu- 
able. You  stocked  up  pretty  well  with  the 
music  of  the  day,  the  current  Broadway 
comic  opera  and  musical  comedy  successes. 
Gradually,  however,  that  pet  coon  song  of 
yours  will  begin  to  pall  on  you  a  little.  The 
very  jingle  to  the  tune  that  made  it  catch 
your  fancy  so  quickly  causes  you  to  tire  of 
it,  and  so  it  goes  with  the  other  pieces  whose 
22 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

rhythm  is  so  marked  and  continued  with 
such  great  precision  and  whose  tunefulness 
was  so  obvious  that  they  made  an  instan- 
taneous impression  upon  your  musically  un- 
trained sense  of  hearing.  You  are  beginning 
to  find  out  what  any  one  who  is  trained  in 
any  art  is  bound  to  discover  sooner  or  later. 
The  things  most  easily  understood  are  not 
apt  to  give  the  most  lasting  pleasure.  Some 
one  suggests  to  you  that  you  try  one  of  the 
lighter  classical  pieces.  You  don't  like  that 
word  "  classical,"  it  suggest  heaviness,  lack 
of  tunefulness,  the  kind  of  thing  that  "  may 
be  all  right  for  some  people,"  but  never, 
you  think,  would  suit  you.  At  last,  how- 
ever, you  yield.  You  inquire  for  something 
of  the  kind  and  are  advised  to  try  Mendels- 
sohn's "  Spring  Song."  Much  to  your  sur- 
prise you  don't  find  it  heavy  at  all.  In 
fact  you  recall  once  having  heard  it  played 
between  the  acts  in  a  theatre  and  having 
3  23 


THE  PIANOLIST 

thought  it  rather  pretty.  Its  rhythm  isn't 
as  persistently  emphatic  as  that  of  ragtime, 
nor  does  its  melody  stand  out  in  such  sharp 
relief,  but  instead  of  wearying  you  on  repeti- 
tion, you  like  it  better  every  time  you  play 
it. 

Encouraged  by  this  experience  you  next 
purchase  the  same  composer's  "  Spinning 
Song."  This  may  not  appeal  to  you  so 
much  at  first.  It  seems  to  run  along  very 
rapidly  without  any  very  clearly  defined 
melody.  Still,  it  is  by  the  same  composer 
as  the  "  Spring  Song,"  so  it  may  be  worth 
trying  over  again.  It  is  more  familiar  now, 
and  you  begin  to  associate  the  rapid,  whir- 
ring phrases  with  its  title — with  the  idea  of 
"  spinning."  How  clear  it  suddenly  be- 
comes. You  even  conjure  up  in  your  mind 
the  picture  of  some  young  woman  in  quaint 
garb  seated  at  a  spinning  wheel  in  an  old- 
fashioned  room — and  you  find  yourself  ex- 
24 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

periencing  all  the  pleasure  that  comes  from 
association  of  ideas,  the  keenest  enjoyment 
that  art  affords.  You  are  making  rapid 
progress  now,  so  rapid  that  it  is  as  impossible 
as  unnecessary  to  follow  you  step  by  step. 
The  main  point  is  that  you  are  becoming 
truly  musical  and  at  the  same  time  enjoying 
it.  What  might  be  "  all  right  for  some 
people  "  has  become  all  right  for  you  too. 
You  have  been  repaid  a  thousand-fold  for 
the  little  effort  it  cost  you  to  discover  through 
the  gradual  development  of  a  taste  that  had 
lain  dormant,  the  kind  of  music  that  "  lasts." 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  your  whole  family. 
It  has  become  musical,  and  in  an  incredibly 
short  space  of  time.  The  pianola  has  done 
it,  and  done  the  same  thing  in  thousands  of 
other  cases. 

Now  take  the  case  of  some  one  whose 
musical  taste,  to  begin  with,  is  more  ad- 
vanced. Supposing  that,  instead  .of  having 

25 


THE   PIANOLIST 

had  your  musical  horizon  bounded  by  coon 
songs  and  comic  operas,  you  were  an  at- 
tendant at  orchestral  concerts,  song  and 
pianoforte  recitals  and  grand  opera.  You 
are  a  genuine  music  lover,  genuinely  mus- 
ical, but  you  can't  play.  You  long  to  re- 
produce and  express  at  home  the  music  you 
have  heard  elsewhere.  If  only,  after  hear- 
ing Paderewski  play  your  favorite  Chopin 
nocturne,  which,  as  with  so  many  other 
music  lovers,  is  the  exquisite  one  in  G  major, 
Opus  37,  No.  2,  you  could  go  to  your  own 
pianoforte  and  play  it!  You  think  it  is 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  compositions  in 
the  whole  repertory,  and  of  all  pianists 
whom  you  have  heard,  Paderewski,  in  your 
opinion,  plays  it  better  than  any  other. 
There  are  pieces  that  sound  more  difficult 
and  you  have  been  told  that  it  doesn't  call 
for  advanced  technique  as  much  as  it  does 
for  soul.  That  is  what  your  favorite  vir- 
26 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

tuoso  seems  to  you  to  put  into  it — soul,  his 
own  soul,  interpreting  himself,  unconsciously 
expressing  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings, 
through  those  of  the  composer.  That  is 
what  you  are  convinced  you  could  do,  if 
only  you  knew  how  to  play;  for  you  are 
musical,  very  musical,  almost,  in  fact,  to 
your  finger  tips.  But  these,  alas,  never 
have  been  trained  to  command  the  key- 
board. You  are  getting  along  well  in 
business,  making  money  and  all  that;  and  yet 
you  look  upon  your  life  as  half  a  failure 
because,  although  you  have  the  temperament 
artistic,  you  are  unable  to  gratify  fully  your 
passion  for  music.  You  can  listen,  but  you 
can't  play.  You  can  hear  Paderewski  in- 
terpret your  favorite  nocturne,  but  you  can't 
go  home  to  your  own  pianoforte  and  let 
your  fingers  conjure  up  memories  of  it  on 
the  keyboard.  You  have  a  beautiful  piano- 
forte in  your  house — for  the  use  of  others. 

27 


THE  PIANOLIST 

You'd  be  willing  to  mortgage  half  your 
income  for  life,  if  you  could  learn  to  play 
it  yourself.  But  it's  too  late  for  that  now. 
So  you  think. 

But  one  day  you  drop  in  at  a  friend's 
house  and  from  the  drawing  room  come 
strains  of  your  favorite  Chopin  nocturne. 
Something  about  it  reminds  you  of  the  way 
Paderewski  plays  it.  Who  can  it  be?  You 
know  that  your  friend  doesn't  play  the 
pianoforte.  But,  as  you  stand  in  the  door- 
way, hesitating  whether  to  go  in  or  not,  it 
is  he  who  looks  out  at  you  from  behind  the 
instrument  and  nods  to  you  to  come  in. 
You  drop  into  a  chair  and  listen  and  won- 
der. The  nocturne  comes  to  an  end,  your 
friend  rises,  greets  your  wondering  look  with 
a  smile,  and  meets  your  amazed  query  with 
one  word:  "Pianola!" 

"  It  sounded  like  Paderewski,"  you  stam- 
mer in  a  dazed  sort  of  way. 
28 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

"  Why  shouldn't  it?  Practically,  I  have 
been  taught  how  to  play  it  by  that  great 
artist."  He  takes  out  the  roll  and  brings 
it  over  for  you  to  look  at.  On  it  you  see, 
reproduced  in  facsimile  this  autographed 
certification : 

"  The  line  on  this  roll  indicates  the  tempo 
according  to  my  interpretation. 

"  I.  J.  Paderewski." 

The  roll,  as  the  expression  goes,  has  been 
"  metrostyled  "  by  the  virtuoso  himself. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  had  one  of  these 
instruments.  Why  haven't  you  told  me? — 
How  long  have  you  had  it?  " 

"  About  a  week,"  he  answers. 

"  And  you  can  make  it  sound  like  that?  " 

"  Of  course  I  can.  Nothing  easier.  Just 
stand  behind  me  and  watch." 

He  replaces  the  music  roll  and,  as  he 
pedals  and  it  unrolls,  he  shows  you  how 
easy  it  is  with  the  metrostyle  to  follow  the 

29 


THE  PIANOLIST 

red  line  marked  by  Paderewski  to  indicate 
how  he  plays  the  piece. 

"  According  to  my  idea,"  continues  your 
friend,  "  he  plays  some  parts  of  the  second 
melody  a  little  too  slowly — makes  it  too 
sentimental,  instead  of  poetically  expressive. 
You  may  observe  that  I  don't  always  follow 
the  line.  That's  one  of  the  great  things 
about  the  instrument.  You  can  profit  by 
the  directions  just  as  much  as  you  want  to, 
but  you  can  disregard  them  whenever  you 
have  a  mind  to.  It  may  seem  presumptuous 
to  differ,  even  in  a  small  detail,  *  from  a 
great  virtuoso  like  Paderewski,  but  every 
virtuoso  has  his  idiosyncrasies  and  we,  who, 
after  all,  have  been  listening  to  music  all 
our  lives  and  have  heard  all  the  great  pian- 
ists from  Rubinstein  to  l  Paddy '  himself  and 
all  the  women  pianists  from  Essipoff  to 
Bloomfield-Zeisler,  are  entitled  to  some  ideas 
of  our  own.  As  I  just  said,  one  of  the  great 
30 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

things  about  the  instrument  is  that  it  allows 
us  this  latitude.     I  call  it  a  cinch! 

"  Now  here's  something  else.  We  know 
Richard  Strauss'  big  tone  poems,  the  biggest 
things  in  music  since  Wagner.  But  did 
you  know  that  he's  written  some  charming 
little  pieces  for  pianoforte?  Just  listen  to 
this.  It's  a  *  Traumerei '  or  *  Revery,'  a 
delicious  little  dreamy  improvisation.  He 
1  metrostyled '  it  himself  and,  as  I've  never 
heard  anyone  play  it,  I'm  only  too  glad  to 
have  his  directions.  They  give  you  the 
general  hang  of  the  thing  '  right  off  the 
reel,'  so  to  speak.  But  later  on,  when  I 
become  more  familiar  with  it,  if  I  want  to 
vary  the  interpretation  according  to  my 
own  mood  of  the  moment,  I  can.  It's  a  great 
thing,  though,  to  find  out  how  famous  living 
composers,  like  Richard  Strauss,  Grieg — here 
are  a  couple  of  rolls  from  his  *  Peer  Gynt ' 
suite  metrostyled  by  himself — Saint  Saens, 

31 


THE  PIANOLIST 

Elgar,  or  even  composers  of  first  rate  lighter 
music,  like  Moszkowski  and  Chaminade, 
conceive  that  they  want  to  have  their  works 
interpreted;  or  how  great  virtuosos,  like 
Paderewski,  Rosenthal  and  other  pianists, 
play  them;  or  gifted  instructors  in  music, 
like  Carl  Reinecke,  would  have  them  per- 
formed. It's  like  taking  lessons  in  inter- 
pretation from  these  people. 

"  There's  another  matter  that  will  interest 
you.  Take  pieces  like  Rubinstein's  *  Melody 
in  F '  or  the  best  known  selection  from  his 
1  Kammenoi,  Ostrow,'  where  the  melody  lies, 
in  the  former  in  between  the  accompaniment, 
in  the  latter  below  it — you  recall,  of  course, 
how  the  accompanying  figure  hovers  above 
it.  In  pieces  like  these  it  is  important 
that  the  melodic  line  should  be  clearly  dis- 
tinguished, otherwise  it  will  be  smothered. 
Fortunately  an  attachment  to  the  instrument, 
the  themodist,  enables  you  to  bring  out 
32 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

the  melody  and,  at  the  same  time  does  not 
prevent  your  retarding  or  accelerating  the 
general  movement  of  the  piece  or  of  varying 
the  volume  of  sound  as  much  as  you  like. 

"  While  I've  had  the  instrument  only  a 
little  while,  I've  been  struck  with  some- 
thing else.  I  find  that  you  can  accomplish 
a  good  deal  through  what  I  may  call  *  foot- 
technique,'  varying  the  degree  of  strength 
with  which  you  use  the  pedals  that  pump 
in  the  air.  By  this  means  you  can  play 
louder  or  softer  at  will  and  by  a  sharp 
pressure  emphasize  individual  chords  and 
phrases.  This,  I  find,  makes  the  interpre- 
tation seem  more  personal  than  when  I 
use  the  sustaining  and  soft  levers  alone.  Al- 
together I'm  beginning  to  look  upon  myself 
as  a  virtuoso,  and  the  best  thing  you  can 
do,  old  man,  is  to  take  my  advice  and  be- 
come one  too." 

Fortunately  you  are  musical  enough  and 

33 


THE  PIANOLIST 

intelligent  enough  to  appreciate  the  philos- 
ophy and  significance  of  the  instrument — 
that  it  supplies  what  you  haven't  got,  the 
technique,  but  that  you  give  it  the  expression, 
the  soul ;  that  although  it  is  not  a  pianoforte, 
but  an  atachment  to  that  instrument,  never- 
theless, in  playing  it,  you  express  something 
of  yourself,  something  of  your  inner  being, 
something  of  your  higher  artistic  nature 
through  it. 

There  is  a  large  class  of  people  to  whom 
the  "  piano-player  "  is  or  should  be  a  great 
boon.  I  mean  those  who  play  the  piano- 
forte, but  not  well  enough  to  play  publicly 
or  professionally.  To  this  class  belong  the 
thousands  of  music  teachers  and  the  ama- 
teurs. The  majority  of  them  may  be  more 
truly  musical  than  many  of  the  virtuoso 
pianists,  but  they  are  lacking  in  technique. 
For  the  technical  standard  is  growing  higher 
every  year.  Comparatively  few  music  teach- 

34 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

ers  have  much  opportunity  of  hearing  music, 
the  result  being  that  they  find  it  difficult  to 
keep  up  with  the  times.  They  become  old- 
fashioned,  and  in  these  progressive  days  to 
become  old-fashioned  means  to  be  forced 
to  "  drop  out."  They  lack  the  technique 
to  run  through  the  modern  repertoire,  and 
the  time  to  hear  others  in  it.  It  hardly  is 
necessary  to  point  out  what  the  pianola, 
which  gives  them  complete  technical  mas- 
tery of  the  keyboard,  should  be  to  them. 

As  regards  the  amateur  I  can  cite  my  own 
case  as  an  example.  I  had  progressed  on 
the  pianoforte  until  I  was  able  to  play  Liszt's 
arrangement  of  the  Spinning  Song  from 
Wagner's  "  Flying  Dutchman."  It  is  a 
difficult  piece,  but  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
pianoforte  music  that  is  more  difficult  and 
that  was  entirely  beyond  me.  Moreover 
the  fact  that  I  was  able  to  play  this  composi- 
tion after  much  assiduous  practice,  did  not 

35 


THE  PIANOLIST 

mean  that  I  could  play  equally  difficult  .or 
even  considerably  less  difficult  music  with 
ease  by  sight.  The  repertoire  of  even  the 
best  amateur  is  apt  to  be  a  small  one.  He 
gains  his  general  knowledge  of  music  from 
what  he  hears. 

With  me,  in  time,  as  with  so  many  ama- 
teurs, pianoforte  playing  had  to  yield  first 
place  to  my  regular  work.  I  took  up 
writing  and  that  became  paramount.  I  be- 
gan to  lose  my  pianoforte  technique,  and 
I  should  not  like  to  say  how  many  years  it 
is  since  I  lost  the  ability  to  play  Liszt's  ar- 
rangement of  the  Spinning  Song  from  the 
"The  Flying  Dutchman,"  the  "Butterfly" 
etude  of  Chopin  and  other  works  that  I 
had  had  at  my  fingers'  ends.  Often,  when 
I  went  to  pianoforte  recitals  and  heard  these 
compositions  played,  I  grieved  over  what 
I  had  lost — through  sacrificing  the  piano- 
forte to  the  pen. 

36 


PLAYING  Music  YOURSELF 

I  grieve  no  longer.  I  have  acquired  a 
perfect  technique,  the  technique  of  a  great 
virtuoso — through  the  pianola.  It  is  a  key 
that  has  unlocked  for  me  the  whole  reper- 
tory of  music.  With  it  I  can  play  the  most 
difficult  work  ever  written  as  easily  as  I 
can  a  five-finger  exercise.  It  gives  me  the 
technique,  but  all  that  is  summed  up  in  the 
one  word  "  expression,"  I  am  at  liberty  to 
put  into  the  music  myself. 

In  the  whole  world  there  are  perhaps  two, 
at  the  most  three  pianoforte  virtuosos  who 
really  deserve  to  be  called  great.  To  listen 
to  them  is  the  acme  of  musical  delight.  But 
right  next  to  this  comes  the  performance  of 
any  musical  person,  whether  a  child  or 
grown  up,  on  the  pianola.  It  is  better  than 
the  playing  of  any  virtuoso  not  absolutely 
of  the  very  first  rank,  and  infinitely  prefer- 
able to  the  playing  of  the  most  gifted  ama- 
teur, while  the  performance  of  the  average 

37 


THE  PIANOLIST 

amateur  almost  is  juvenile  compared  with 
it.  Moreover  there  are  pieces  of  which 
the  Liszt  "  Campanella,"  the  Mendelssohn 
"  Rondo  Capriccioso "  and  the  "  Rosa- 
munde "  impromptu  of  Schubert,  are  ex- 
amples, that,  when  played  on  the  pianola 
by  a  musical  person,  sound  just  as  well  as 
if  they  came  from  under  the  fingers  of  the 
greatest  living  virtuoso — possibly  better. 

These  are  not  dreams,  they  are  facts;  and 
discoverable  in  due  time  by  everyone  who 
is  made  musical  through  the  instrument  of 
which  I  am  writing;  and,  in  an  incredibly 
short  time  by  any  one,  already  musical,  who 
takes  it  up.  Moreover  they  are  facts  readily 
susceptible  of  explanation,  and  here  it  is: — 
All  technical  difficulties  being  eliminated 
by  the  pianola,  the  player  is  free  to  give 
his  whole  attention  to  interpretation,  to  that 
subtle  something  which  we  call  "  expres- 
sion," and  which  constitutes  the  supreme 
quality  of  a  musical  performance. 

38 


III.      FIRST   STEPS   OF  THE   MUS- 
ICAL NOVICE 

1  CONFESS  that  when  I  first  thought  of 
writing  this  book  my  intention  was  to 
plan  it  somewhat  on  the  same  lines  as  the 
usual  "  How  to  Listen  to  Music  "  book,  but 
to  make  it  somewhat  simpler.  As  the  cata- 
logue of  pianola  music  includes  everything 
from  Bach  to  Richard  Strauss  it  seemed  to 
me  that  it  would  be  easy  to  give  the  reader 
a  course  in  musical  development,  beginning 
with  the  simpler  pieces  of  Bach,  like  the 
bourrees  and  gavottes;  then  taking  up  the 
sonatas  of  Mozart  and  Beethoven;  the  com- 
positions of  the  romantic  school  from  Schu- 
bert to  Chopin ;  and  ending  with  the  modern 
school  of  Wagner,  Liszt  and  Richard 
Strauss — in  other  words  giving  a  survey  of 
the  whole  evolution  of  music. 

This  would  coincide  with  the  ordinary 
course  of  musical  instruction,  which  nat- 
urally ranges  from  what  are  considered  the 

39 


THE   PIANOLIST 

easier  and  simpler  pieces  to  the  more  diffi- 
cult ones,  early  music  being  less  compli- 
cated and  making  less  demand  upon  the 
player's  technique  than  music  of  the  present 
day.  But  I  had  forgotten  one  important 
point  which  is,  that  on  the  pianola  nothing 
is  difficult,  that  with  this  modern  instrument 
the  question  of  difficulty  entirely  disappears, 
and  that  the  most  hair-raising,  breath-catch- 
ing exploits  of  virtuosity  are  as  easy  for  the 
pianolist  as  the  most  commonplace  five- 
finger  exercises  are  for  the  pianist.  In 
other  words,  the  pianolist  can  approach 
music  from  a  wholly  new  standpoint.  For 
him  music  exists  simply  as  music.  Its  his- 
tory, its  evolution,  which  latter  after  all  is 
a  matter  purely  technical,  need  not  concern 
him  at  all. 

I  was  brought  to  this  view  by  a  rather 
startling  discovery.  I  think  it  will  seem 
equally  startling  to  any  one  who  has  stud- 
40 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

ied  music  in  the  usual  way — the  laborious 
technical  development  involved  in  acquiring 
the  mastery  of  a  musical  instrument,  gen- 
erally the  pianoforte.  In  discussing  Chop- 
in's "  Etude "  in  A  flat,  Op.  10,  No.  10, 
one  of  the  greatest  virtuosos  of  his  day, 
Hans  van  Biilow,  said  that  "  he  who  can 
play  this  study  in  a  really  finished  manner 
may  congratulate  himself  on  having  climbed 
to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  the  pianist's 
Parnassus,  as  it  is  perhaps  the  most  diffi- 
cult piece  of  the  entire  set.  The  whole 
repertory  of  piano  music  does  not  contain 
a  study  of  perpetual  movement  so  full  of 
genius  and  fancy  as  this  particular  one  is 
universally  acknowledged  to  be,  excepting 
perhaps  Liszt's  '  Feux  Follets '  (Will-o'-the 
wisps)."  In  looking  over  the  catalogue  of 
music  for  the  mechanical  piano-player  I 
find  that  this  immensely  difficult  study  by 
Liszt,  so  difficult  that  Von  Biilow  classes 


THE  PIANOLIST 

it  with  the  Chopin  study,  "  the  highest  pin- 
nacle of  the  pianist's  Parnassus,"  is  listed 
with  the  "  popular  "  pieces.  Thus  a  com- 
position which  taxes  the  resources  of  the 
greatest  virtuosos  to  the  utmost  and  which 
few  if  any  amateurs  can  play  at  all,  presents 
no  difficulties  whatsoever  to  the  pianolist 
and  actually  becomes  "  popular."  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  the  Liszt  "  Bell  Rondo " 
(La  Campanella).  This  delicate,  dainty 
yet  immensely  difficult  work,  which  most 
amateurs  know  only  from  hearing  it  played 
in  pianoforte  recitals  because  they  them- 
selves can  do  no  more  than  stumble  through 
it,  is,  like  the  "  Feux  Follets,"  a  popular 
piece  in  the  repertory  of  the  pianolist.  Such 
an  astounding  result  is  possible  only  upon 
the  pianola  which  absolutely  eliminates  all 
technical  difficulties  and  leaves  the  player 
free  to  select  his  music  without  regard  to 
such  difficulties. 
42 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

Another  matter  connected  with  the  pia- 
nolist's  repertory  opens  up  a  field  for  specu- 
lation into  which,  fortunately,  it  is  quite 
possible  for  the  layman  to  follow  the  musi- 
cian and  to  appreciate  the  point  I  wish  to 
make.  As  many  purchasers  of  pianolas  are 
people  who  never  have  received  musical 
instruction,  it  might  be  supposed  that  the 
most  popular  selections  for  the  instrument 
would  be  either  bits  of  musical  slang  like 
twosteps  and  ragtime,  or,  at  the  best,  simple 
pieces  in  the  recognized  classical  forms. 
But  the  result  of  the  spread  of  musical  taste 
through  this  new  instrument  is  wholly  dif- 
ferent and  wholly  novel  from  the  stand- 
point of  conventional  musical  experience. 
The  public,  the  great  musical  public  created 
by  an  instrument  which  does  away  with  all 
considerations  of  technique  and  leaves  the 
player  free  to  select  what  he  wants  to  play, 
no  matter  how  difficult  it  may  be  when 

43 


THE  PIANOLIST 

played  on  the  pianoforte,  sweeps  aside  all 
conventions  which  learned  commentators, 
critics  and  writers  on  the  history  and  evo- 
lution of  music  have  sought  to  establish  and 
in  fact  have  succeeded  in  establishing  for 
those  who  have  been  obliged  to  study  music 
in  the  ordinary  way,  and  boldly  selects  as 
first  choice  from  the  vast  array  of  composi- 
tions Liszt's  "  Rhapsodic  Hongroise "  No. 
2,  with  the  "  Tannhauser  "  overture  of  Wag- 
ner a  close  second.  In  other  words  the 
musical  public  when  left  to  itself  and  not 
led — or  led  astray — by  pedants  begins  at 
the  right  end  of  musical  evolution  which  is 
the  end,  the  supreme  efflorescence,  and  not 
the  beginning.  Conceding  that  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  human  race  began  with  the 
monkey  and  ends  with  ourselves,  it  may  be 
said,  metaphorically,  that  the  musical  public, 
when  left  to  itself,  declines  to  monkey  with 
the  monkey,  but  at  once  proceeds  to  pluck 
44 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

the  full  flower  of  evolution,  the  human. 
For  if  any  musical  compositions  are  hu- 
man documents  that  term  is  applicable  to 
the  "  Second  Rhapsody  "  and  to  the  "  Tann- 
hauser "  overture.  Each  tells  a  vivid  story 
and  tells  it  according  to  the  canons  of  art, 
life  and  truth.  The  unfortunate  student 
of  music,  shackled  by  instruction  that  aims 
mainly  at  teaching  him  how  to  play  an  in- 
strument and  ignores  the  higher  side  of  art, 
plods  through  the  classical  repertory  until 
he  gets  an  idea  that  music  consists  of  noth- 
ing but  symphonies  and  sonatas,  which  is 
as  absurd  as  it  would  be  to  say  that  poetry 
consists  of  nothing  but  sonnets,  whereas  a 
couple  of  dozen  good  sonnets  are  enough 
for  the  literature  of  any  language. 

Indeed,  while  instruction  in  the  other  arts 
steadily  is  being  modernized  and  steadily 
aims  to  familiarize  the  student  with  their 
higher  aspects,  little  progress  has  been  made 

45 


THE  PIANOLIST 

in  the  teaching  of  music.  It  still  is  in  a 
state  comparable  only  with  that  which  ex- 
isted in  the  teaching  of  languages  when  in- 
struction in  these  was  given  according  to 
the  system  of  Ollendorf,  with  its  series  of 
foolish  questions  and  answers: — 

"  Is  this  the  sword  of  the  grandfather?  " 
"  No,   it  is  the  false  curl  of  the  grand- 
mother." 

A  five  finger  exercise,  or  an  old-fashioned 
technical  study  with  its  dry  little  theme  in 
the  treble  and  its  foolish  little  answer  in 
the  base,  always  suggests  to  me  something 
along  the  lines  of  the  Ollendorfian  phrase- 
ology:— 

"Is  this  musical  phrase  beautiful?" 
"  No,  but  it  is  great  for  limbering  up  the 
little  finger." 

Often  since  giving  thought  to  the  new  in- 
strument which  wholly  eliminates  the  ques- 
tion of  technique  from  pianoforte  playing, 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

I  have  wondered  if  the  importance  attached 
to  "  limbering  up  the  little  finger  "  has  not 
given  us  a  wrong  musical  perspective; 
whether  compositions  musically  of  little 
value  have  not  assumed  enormous  impor- 
tance in  the  curriculum  and  been  retained 
there,  because  they  developed  ringer  facility 
in  certain  directions.  For  example  to  a 
pianist  the  "  School  of  Velocity  "  by  Czerny 
and  the  "  Gradus  ad  Parnassum "  by  de- 
menti, two  series  of  famous  technical  studies, 
mean  everything.  To  the  pianolist  they 
mean  nothing — need  mean  nothing.  As 
for  the  "  School  of  Velocity "  he  can  by 
simply  moving  the  tempo  lever  to  the  right 
make  the  pianola  play  so  fast  that,  if  old 
Czerny  still  were  alive,  he  would  lose  his 
breath  listening  to  it.  As  for  the  "  Gradus 
ad  Parnassum,"  the  difficulties  which  de- 
menti piled  up  in  the  pianist's  path,  the 
pianolist  overleaps  as  lightly  and  casually 

47 


THE  PIANOLIST 

as  if  wholly  unaware  of  their  existence.  He 
may  never  have  heard  of  these  technical 
works  yet,  if  he  has  natural  musical  instinct 
or  has  developed  it  through  the  piano- 
player,  he  will  be  as  correct  in  his  judgment 
of  what  to  play  and  how  to  play  it,  as  if 
he  had  devoted  his  whole  life  to  an  ardu- 
ous study  of  pianoforte  technique.  The 
pianolist's  experience  with  music  is  wholly 
musical,  while  the  pianist's  is  largely  tech- 
nical. For  observe,  that  while  a  music 
teacher  often  selects  a  piece  for  his  pupil, 
not  so  much  because  it  is  beautiful  but  be- 
cause it  follows  up  and  supplements  the 
technical  exercise  which  the  pupil  has  been 
practicing,  the  pianolist's  point  of  view  in 
choosing  his  repertory  is  not  obscured  by 
any  consideration  of  this  kind.  Scratch  a 
Russian  and  you  find  a  Tartar;  scratch 
musical  instruction  of  the  average  kind  and 
you  find  technique.  The  pianolist's  prog- 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

ress  is  determined  by  music's  appeal  to  his 
soul;  the  average  music  pupil's  by  what  he 
can  accomplish  with  his  ringers.  In  this 
way,  as  I  already  have  suggested,  certain 
pieces  have  acquired  an  importance  far  out 
of  proportion  to  their  musical  value,  and 
have  retained  their  position  not  only  in  the 
curriculum  but,  unfortunately,  even  in  the 
concert  repertory. 

There  is  a  lot  of  this  dry  wood  in  music 
and  the  unfortunate  student  is  compelled  to 
chop  it  until,  when  he  sees  a  real  tree,  he 
thinks  it  is  all  wrong  because  it  has  green 
leaves  instead  of  withered  ones  and  strong, 
sappy  branches  instead  of  little  twigs  that 
snap  off  at  the  least  touch.  This  is  the 
reason  that  modern  music,  although  it  is  the 
most  natural  music  ever  written,  has  to  be 
"  explained  " — because  students  prejudiced 
by  pedantic  instruction  have  become  so  ac- 
customed to  the  artificial  that  they  cannot 

49 


THE  PIANOLIST 

appreciate  what  is  natural;  just  as  experts 
in  primitive  art  fail  to  appreciate  the  beauty 
of  the  later  schools  of  painting. 

To  me  it  is  positively  exhilarating  that 
the  great  mass  of  those  people  who  have 
become  devotees  of  the  mechanical  piano- 
player  do  not  stop  to  ask  what  is  the  rela- 
tion of  this  or  that  composition  to  the  de- 
velopment of  music  or  its  place  in  musical 
evolution ;  but,  taking  music  simply  as  music, 
confidently  place  pieces  like  the  "  Second 
Rhapsody  "  or  the  "  Tannhauser  "  overture 
on  the  pianola  and  are  thrilled  by  the  artis- 
tic realism  of  these  compositions.  Uncon- 
sciously they  are  supporting  the  contention 
of  those  advanced  thinkers  in  music  who 
place  the  expression  of  life  and  truth  above 
artificial  form.  Suppose  a  paint  brush 
were  invented  which  would  give  complete 
mastery  of  the  technique  of  painting  to  the 
person  in  whose  hand  it  was  placed.  Would 
50 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

that  person  go  to  work  copying  the  old 
masters?  No.  He  would  paint  the  sea, 
the  low  meadow  land,  the  foot  hills,  the 
mountains,  the  waving  grain,  the  forest,  the 
man  he  admired,  the  woman  he  loved.  And 
so  it  is  that  the  player  who  has  the  technical 
mastery  of  the  pianoforte  placed,  so  to 
speak,  at  his  disposal,  is  led  by  instinct 
toward  the  most  modern  expression  of  mus- 
ical thought  and  genius. 

In  his  book,  "  The  Temple  of  Art,"  Ernest 
Newlandsmith  has  a  chapter  on  musical 
education  in  which  he  points  out  that  after 
all  a  pianist's  fingers  and  muscles  are  simply 
mechanical  contrivances  for  striking  the 
keys,  and  that  to  gain  complete  control  or 
mastery  of  this  mechanical  process  requires 
incessant  drudgery  and  labor,  such  mastery 
being  attained  only  by  very  few  people. 
"  The  average  pianist  never  gains  the  power 
of  even  striking  the  notes  in  really  difficult 


THE  PIANOLIST 

music;  yet  for  an  artist  to  infuse  the  exact 
expression  of  his  feeling  into  a  work,  he 
must  not  only  be  able  to  do  this,  but  must 
also  be  able  to  vary  this  striking  of  notes 
by  the  most  minute  and  subtle  degrees  of 
intensity,  and  that  without  experiencing  any 
difficulty  whatever,  so  that  his  entire  atten- 
tion may  be  devoted  to  his  feeling."  All 
this  the  pianolist  gains  without  any  of  that 
drudgery  so  apt  to  obscure  correct  musical 
perspective,  so  that,  to  quote  again  from 
Mr.  Newlandsmith,  "  it  is  a  matter  of  won- 
der that  any  one  can  be  found  to  speak 
against  mechanical  piano-players,  when  they 
remember  that  they  are  only  mechanical  to 
the  extent  that  a  pianist  has  to  be.  They 
are  not  intended  to  play  of  themselves,  like 
a  musical  box,  but  are  controlled  by  the  per- 
former's feeling." 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

The  first  steps  in  music  are  apt  to  be  "  two- 
steps."  Marches  and  dances  of  a  popular 
kind  and  the  seemingly  inevitable  coon-song 
may  be  regarded  as  the  infant's  food  of  the 
musical  novice.  For  a  person  whose  love 
of  music  still  is  latent,  may  not  "  arrive " 
at  once  at  the  "  Second  Rhapsody "  or  the 
"  Tannhauser "  overture.  The  friend  to 
whom  I  have  dedicated  this  book  began 
with  the  lightest  kind  of  music,  the  kind  he 
now  regards  as  "  trash."  For  from  know- 
ing nothing  at  all  about  music,  he  has  be- 
come, through  the  piano-player,  an  ardent 
lover  of  all  that  is  good  in  the  art.  Nevin's 
"  Narcissus  "  happened  to  be  included  in  his 
first  set  of  rolls.  He  tried  it  over,  but 
thought  it  dull.  After  a  while,  however, 
when  the  other  rolls  began  to  pall  on  him, 
he  played  it  again  and  found  in  it  something 
that  he  missed  in  the  others.  This  was  the 
first  step  toward  better  things,  and  step  by 

53 


THE  PIANOLIST 

step   thereafter  he   gained   in   musical   taste 
until  now  his  judgment  is  unerring. 

Nevin  whose  death  six  years  ago  and  at 
a  comparatively  early  age,  was  a  distinct 
loss  to  music,  was  one  of  the  small  number 
of  composers  who  have  written  music  of 
the  lighter  kind  which  yet  is  thoroughly 
good,  music  that  is  pleasing  without  being 
trivial,  melodious  without  a  suggestion  of 
the  commonplace,  and  thoroughly  sound  in 
workmanship.  This  American  composer 
was  exceptionally  apt  at  reproducing  in 
music  a  mood  or  fancy  and  at  painting  in 
tone  the  charms  of  a  romantic  locality.  Pos- 
sibly no  gentler  rise  from  what  is  known  as 
the  "  light  classic "  to  the  classic  can  be 
provided  than  through  him.  Therefore  I 
begin  with  him,  although  he  is  a  thoroughly 
modern  composer,  my  aim  being  gradually 
to  lead  the  pianolist  from  enjoyment  of 
lighter  works,  of  the  kind,  however,  which 

54 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

possess  genuine  musical  merit,  to  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  greater  masterpieces.  Some- 
times I  have  selected  only  one  work  by  a 
composer  and,  except  in  the  case  of  Chopin, 
never  more  than  a  few  examples  from  any 
composer.  But  the  works  which  I  cite  and 
describe  in  more  or  less  detail,  should  suffice 
to  stimulate  the  pianolist  to  explore  more 
fully  the  range  of  the  composers  I  mention, 
and  of  others.  I  give  merely  a  taste;  the 
catalogue  of  music  rolls  supplies  the  full 
menu. 

To  some  this  arrangement  may  seem  hap- 
hazard. Nevertheless  it  has  system  and 
purpose.  The  usual  method  followed  in 
books  that  aim  to  be  musical  guides  would 
have  been  much  easier.  Mine  I  believe 
best  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  average 
pianolist,  who,  it  may  be  assumed,  at  the 
time  he  purchases  his  instrument,  knows 
little  or  nothing  about  music  of  the  higher 
5  55 


THE  PIANOLIST 

kind;  whose  taste,  in  fact,  still  is  to  be  de- 
veloped. 

I  cannot  imagine  any  one  so  obtuse  to 
musical  impressions  as  not  to  find  Nevin's 
"  Valse  Caprice,"  Op.  6,  No.  i,  thoroughly 
delightful.  It  is  the  first  of  a  set  of  several 
pieces  comprised  in  his  sixth  work,  this 
fact  being  expressed  by  the  designation  Opus 
6,  No.  i.  The  piece  is  full  of  pretty  senti- 
ment and  I  always  like  to  imagine  that  it 
describes  an  episode  during  a  dance.  It 
has  charming  melodies.  Ornamental  figura- 
tions in  the  accompaniment,  now  above,  now 
below,  give  the  effect  of  whispered  ques- 
tions and  answers  during  the  dance.  The 
questions — put  by  the  man — are  pressing  and 
ardent,  the  answers — from  the  girl — playful 
and  parrying.  Sometimes  they  even  ripple 
with  chaff.  Yet,  toward  the  end  of  the 
dainty  little  composition,  they  become  tinged 
with  sentiment,  as  if  she  were  afraid  she 

56 


might  have  gone  a  little  too  far  and  might 
"  spoil  things "  and  thought  it  just  as  well 
to  let  him  know  in  time  that,  after  all,  she 
was  not  turning  a  wholly  deaf  ear  to  his 
pleading. 

This  piece  I  would  follow  with  Nevin's 
"  Intermezzo,"  Op.  7,  No.  3.  Although  it 
belongs  to  an  entirely  different  work  I  en- 
joy playing  it  immediately  after  the  waltz 
and  imagining  that  it  relates  to  the  same 
young  couple — that  he  has  led  her  out  into 
the  conservatory  or  on  to  a  terrace  overlook- 
ing a  moonlight  garden  and  under  these  ro- 
mantic circumstances,  is  urging  his  suit 
more  persistently  than  before.  She,  how- 
ever, is  a  little  too  fond  of  flirting  to  let  her 
real  sentiments  be  known  at  once.  But 
when,  as  if  giving  up  the  riddle  in  her 
dancing  eyes  and  seemingly  mocking  smile, 
he  appears  about  to  lead  her  back  into  the 
ballroom,  there  is,  at  least  so  I  like  to  read 

57 


THE  PIANOLIST 

the  music,  a  pretty  little  laugh,  as  much  as 
to  say,  "  Can't  you  read  my  real  feelings 
under  my  mask  of  banter,"  a  tender  glance 
indicated  by  a  retard  on  a  charmingly  ex- 
pressive little  turn  of  the  melody — and  she 
is  in  his  arms. 

Now  I  would  repeat  the  waltz,  to  indi- 
cate that,  carried  away  by  their  happiness, 
they  have  gone  back  into  the  ballroom  and 
thrown  themselves  heart  and  soul  into  the 
dance.  And  there  you  have  a  little  Nevin 
suite  telling  a  pretty  story. 

To  me  one  of  this  composer's  most  fanciful 
tone  paintings  is,  "  In  my  Neighbor's  Gar- 
den," Op.  21,  No.  2.  This  is  one  of  a  series 
of  pieces  the  complete  title  of  which  is 
"  May  in  Tuscany,"  and  which  he  com- 
posed during  a  sojourn  in  Florence.  You 
can  hear  a  bird  sing  all  through  this  piece, 
and  that  the  composer  so  intended  it,  became 
clear  to  me  when  I  found  that  its  original 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

title  was   "  Rusignuolo,"   Italian   for  night- 
ingale. 

Make  haste  to  mount,  thou  wistful  moon, 
Make  haste  to  wake  the  nightingale: 
Let  silence  set  the  world  in  tune 
To  harken  to  that  wordless  tale 
Which  warbles  from  the  nightingale. 

Those  lines  from  Christina  Rosetti's 
"  Bird  Raptures,"  seem  to  me  perfectly  re- 
flected in  Nevin's  composition,  and  equally 
so  are  these  lines  from  the  same  poet's  "  Twi- 
light Calm":— 

Hark!  that's  the  nightingale, 

Telling  the  self -same  tale 

Her  song  told  when  this  ancient  earth  was  young: 
So  echoes  answered  when  her  song  was  sung 

In  the  first  wooded  vale. 

Or  this  from  Byron's  "  Parisina  " : — 

It  is  the  hour  when  from  the  boughs 
The  nightingale's  high  note  is  heard; 

It  is  the  hour  when  lovers'  vows 
Seem  sweet  in  every  whisper'd  word. 

59 


THE  PIANOLIST 

Nevin's  "  Barcarolle  "  is  another  beautiful 
composition,  which  conveys  the  listener  to 
Venice  with  its  picturesque  canals  and  an- 
cient palaces.  It  is  a  night  scene,  and  re- 
minds me  of  Wagner's  description  of  the 
singing  of  the  gondoliers  at  night  in  one  of 
his  letters  from  Venice:  "Ah,  music  on  the 
canal.  A  gondola  with  gaily  colored  lights, 
singers  and  players.  More  and  more  gon- 
dolas join  it.  The  flotilla,  barely  moving, 
gently  gliding,  floats  the  whole  width  of 
the  canal.  At  last,  almost  imperceptibly, 
it  makes  the  turn  of  the  bend  and  vanishes. 
For  a  long  while  I  hear  the  tones  beautified 
by  the  night.  Finally  the  last  sound,  dying 
away,  seems  to  dissolve  itself  into  the  moon- 
light, which  beams  softly  on,  like  a  visible 
realm  of  music." 

There  is  an  entire  Venetian  suite  by  Nevin 
which  he  composed  during  a  stay  in  the 
Italian  city.  One  day  he  gave  his  gondolier 
60 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

a  day  off,  and  the  boatman  took  his  sweet- 
heart, who  lived  on  the  mainland  and  never 
had  been  in  Venice,  through  the  waterways. 
It  was  this  which  suggested  to  Nevin  the 
composition  of  the  suite,  which  he  entitled 
"A  Day  in  Venice."  The  best  known  num- 
ber from  it  is  the  "  Venetian  Love  Song." 
Moskowszki  is  another  good  composer  of 
light  music,  and  like  Nevin,  what  he  writes 
is  thoroughly  original.  His  "  Serenata " 
Op.  15,  No.  i,  is  one  of  the  prettiest  of 
modern  pieces,  and  a  perfect  example  of 
what  a  serenade  should  be — a  graceful 
melody  over  an  accompaniment  of  guitarlike 
chords.  There  is  an  intervening  part  with 
much  ornamentation,  which  has  the  effect  of 
improvising,  a  delicious  little  run  leading 
back  to  the  first  melody  which  now  should 
be  played  very  softly  and  with  slight  re- 
tardations, as  if  the  serenader  were  depart- 
ing and  the  music  dying  away.  "  From 

61 


THE  PIANOLIST 

Foreign  Parts,"  Moskowszki's  Op.  23,  is 
one  of  the  best  known  modern  compositions. 
It  consists  of  several  numbers  each  repre- 
senting a  country  and  composed  in  true 
national  style  and  with  as  much  success  as 
if,  were  such  a  thing  possible,  the  composer 
were  a  native  of  each  of  these  countries  and 
were  thoroughly  imbued  with  its  spirit.  Of 
these  separate  numbers  I  am  inclined  espe- 
cially to  recommend  to  the  pianolist  "  Ger- 
many," with  its  beautiful,  broad,  sustained 
melody,  thoroughly  German  in  contour  and 
expression,  and  among  the  most  beautiful 
melodies  composed  in  modern  times;  and 
"  Spain,"  one  of  the  most  brilliant  little  rolls 
for  the  piano-player — gay,  spirited  and  full 
of  snap  and  go,  the  movement  never  flagging 
from  beginning  to  end.  Moskowszki  has 
shown  himself  most  happy  in  catching  the 
spirit  of  Spanish  music.  He  has  a  book  of 
Spanish  dances  and  two  Spanish  albums 
62 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

full  of  music  of  most  varying  mood,  yet 
every  mood  characteristic  of  Spain  and  its 
people,  now  gay,  now  languorous,  now  dash- 
ing, now  subdued,  now  softly  whispering, 
now  full  of  verve  and  passion,  like  the 
"  Bolero,"  the  fifth  of  the  "  Spanish  Dances," 
Op.  12,  with  its  sharply  accentuated  rhythm 
and  dashing  melody,  which  toward  the  end 
fairly  swirls  with  excitement. 

A  "  Moment  Musical,"  Op.  7,  No.  2,  was 
the  composition  which  gave  Moskowszki 
his  first  taste  of  international  fame,  but  in 
spite  of  much  that  is  genuinely  beautiful, 
especially  in  its  opening  melody,  I  think  the 
work  suffers  from  undue  length.  By  all 
means,  however,  the  pianolist  should  not 
neglect  this  composition.  Were  I  asked, 
however,  to  select  the  work  which  seems  to 
me  to  bring  out  in  the  most  favorable  relief 
Moskowszki's  traits  as  a  composer  it  would 
be  his  "Waltz,"  Op.  34,  No.  i.  It  has  an 

63 


THE  PIANOLIST 

introduction  beginning  with  a  phrase  in  the 
bass  like  a  man  asking  the  honor  of  a  dance 
with  an  attractive  girl,  followed  by  a  little 
upward  run,  the  gleam  of  the  smile  with 
which  she  gives  assent.  Then  there  are 
short,  crisp,  bright  phrases,  as  though  she 
enjoyed  the  knowledge  that  every  one  is 
looking  at  her  as  he  leads  her  out  and  whis- 
pers compliments. 

The  introduction  with  all  these  interest- 
ing preliminaries  over,  the  waltz  itself  opens 
with  a  melody  full  of  sentiment  and  almost 
personal  in  its  persistent  suggestion  of  woo- 
ing. At  the  same  time  it  has  a  graceful 
swing  that  carries  it  along  like  an  under- 
current, with  rising  and  falling  inflections, 
and,  like  the  Nevin  waltz,  with  much  dainty 
ornamentation,  as  if  the  couple  were  con- 
versing in  low  tones  while  dancing.  Then 
there  is  a  brilliant  episode  when  individuals 
seem  lost  sight  of  in  the  general  vividness 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

of  the  scene  with  its  gaily  colored  costumes 
and  flash  of  jewels.  There  are  alternating 
sentimental  passages  until,  toward  the  end, 
the  first  melody  bursts  into  a  fortissimo — a 
great  rising  inflection,  insistent  and  impas- 
sioned— then  a  final  pitch  of  excitement  as 
all  seem  to  throw  themselves  into  the  whirl 
and  the  waltz  reaches  a  brilliant  end.  While 
Nevin  in  the  waltz  which  I  selected  from 
among  his  works,  appears  to  tell  the  story 
of  two  people,  Moskowszki  here  places  be- 
fore our  eyes  a  vivid  ballroom  scene  with 
one  particularly  handsome  couple  as  the 
center  of  attraction,  without,  however,  let- 
ting us  wholly  into  their  secret.  The  waltz, 
though  long,  is  of  never-flagging  interest. 

This  composer's  opus  34  is  an  orchestral 
suite  ("  Premiere  Suite  d'  Orchestre ")  of 
which  the  second  number  is  an  "  Allegretto 
giojoso,"  a  playful,  sportive,  chic  and  grace- 
ful movement,  with  a  tender  melody  in  the 

65 


THE  PIANOLIST 

middle  part,  at  first  heard  alone,  then  with 
a  sparkling  accompaniment.  This  piece 
having  originally  been  scored  for  orchestra, 
it  is  quite  possible  to  detect  orchestral  instru- 
ments like  flutes  and  clarionets  in  some  of 
the  brilliant  runs.  The  pianola  roll  is  a 
reproduction  of  an  arrangement  for  four 
hands,  that  is,  for  two  players  at  one  piano, 
yet  only  one  player  is  required  to  produce 
the  full  effect  of  a  pianoforte  duet  arranged 
from  an  orchestral  composition. 

Moskowszki  is  a  prolific  composer,  and 
it  is  well  worth  the  pianolist's  while  to  thor- 
oughly explore  the  catalogue  of  his  works. 
Much  modern  music  merely  echoes  what 
has  gone  before  and  may  be  summed  up  as 
watered  Chopin.  Therefore,  even  if  Mos- 
kowszki's  compositions  are  in  the  lighter 
forms,  their  originality  and  melodiousness 
make  them  worthy  of  ranking  high  among 
modern  salon  pieces. 
66 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

One  of  the  prettiest  and  deservedly  pop- 
ular little  works  in  the  modern  repertory  is 
the  Paderewski  "  Minuet,"  Op.  14,  No.  i. 
Modern  minuets  are  echoes  of  the  classical 
period.  Compositions  of  this  kind  are  to 
be  found  in  the  sonatas  and  symphonies  of 
Haydn,  Mozart  and  Beethoven  and  even 
further  back  in  the  suites  of  Bach.  Accord- 
ingly the  Paderewski  "  Minuet,"  in  keeping 
with  the  form,  is  simple  and  clear-cut  and 
gracefully  melodious.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  it  is  modern  in  the  brilliant  orna- 
mentation introduced  in  the  middle  part  of 
the  composition  which  in  a  minuet  is  called 
the  trio. 

The  minuet  was  a  stately  dance.  The 
word  is  derived  from  the  French  menu 
meaning  small  and  referring  to  the  short 
steps  taken  in  the  dance.  Originally  the 
music  to  it  was  brief,  but  as  a  complement, 
a  second  minuet  was  added  which,  in  time, 


THE  PIANOLIST 

became  the  trio,  so-called,  because  it  was 
written  in  three  part  harmony.  This  was 
followed  by  a  repetition  of  the  first  minuet. 
While  the  designation  trio  has  been  retained 
to  this  day,  the  three  part  harmony  no 
longer  is  considered  obligatory.  The  minuet 
is  one  of  the  very  few  of  the  older  dance 
forms  which  have  not  become  obsolete. 

It  was  a  square  dance,  the  steps  consisting 
of  a  coupee  (a  salute  to  one's  partner,  while 
resting  on  one  foot  and  swinging  the  other 
backward  and  forward)  a  high  step  and  a 
balance.  In  the  Paderewski  minuet  the 
stately,  ceremonious  character  of  this  dance 
is  preserved  together  with  its  old  fashioned, 
na'ive  grace  and  charm.  It  is  quite  possible 
while  playing  it  to  see  the  dancers  at  a 
French  court  ball  or  in  the  ballroom  of  some 
chateau,  the  women,  beauties  of  their  day,  in 
high  pompadour  with  puffs  and  curls  pow- 
dered white,  with  petites  mouches,  little  moon 
68 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

and  star-shaped  beauty  spots,  on  their  faces; 
square  cut  bodices,  lace  stomachers,  paniers 
over  brocaded  skirts  with  lace  panels;  feet 
encased  in  high  heel  satin  slippers  with 
jewelled  buckles;  and  gracefully  managing 
their  ostrich  feather  fans  as  they  curtsy  to 
their  partners;  the  latter  wearing  wigs  also 
powdered  white,  long  coats  of  brocade, 
elaborately  embroidered  waistcoats  with  lace 
jabots,  satin  knee  breeches,  silk  stockings 
and  a  garter  with  jewelled  buckle  on  the 
right  leg,  and  helping  themselves  to  snuff 
out  of  gold  or  silver  boxes  during  brief 
pauses  in  the  dance.  Such  is  the  picture 
that  can  be  conjured  up  in  imagination 
while  playing  the  Paderewski  minuet. 

Quite  different  yet  equally  effective  in  its 
way  is  his  "  Cracovienne  Fantastic,"  Op.  14, 
No.  6.  The  cracovienne  is  a  Polish  dance 
for  a  large  and  brilliant  company  and  just 
as  Paderewski  recalled  in  his  minuet  the 


THE  PIANOLIST 

stately  assemblage  of  days  long  past,  so  in 
his  cracovienne  he  gives  us  a  brilliant  pic- 
ture of  a  ballroom  scene  in  his  native  Poland 
when  that  country  was  still  in  its  glory 
and  not  partitioned  among  three  nations  of 
Europe.  The  reiteration  of  its  characteristic 
rhythm  gives  it  peculiar  fascination.  It  is 
clearly  and  distinctly  melodious,  with  bright, 
flashing  runs  giving  it  brilliancy. 

Again  different  in  style  from  any  of  the 
preceding  are  the  works  of  Cecile  Cham- 
inade.  Not  only  is  this  composer  a  woman, 
she  is  a  French  woman  and,  like  a  French 
woman,  essentially  clever  and  chic.  She 
may  be  a  trifle  more  superficial  than  the 
composers  I  have  mentioned,  but  her  music 
is  clean-cut,  clear  as  a  crystal,  and,  like 
everything  about  a  refined  woman,  the 
quintessence  of  neatness.  It  is  quite  as  if 
Mme.  Chaminade's  maid  laid  out  her  mus- 
ical thoughts  as  well  as  her  dresses,  being 
70 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

sure  to  have  every  frill  and  furbelow  in  its 
place,  whether  it  be  the  robe  d'  interieur 
which  she  is  to  wear  at  breakfast,  her  robe 
de  ville  for  calling,  or  her  robe  de  soiree. 
True  it  is  that  serious  musicians  are  apt  to 
wear  a  somewhat  supercilious  expression  at 
mention  of  her  music  and  to  pronounce  it 
clever  rather  than  deep,  yet  it  is  equally 
true  that  it  takes  its  place  among  the  best 
salon  pieces  of  the  day  and  gains  value  if 
only  from  the  fact  that  this  bright  French 
woman  has  skillfully  refrained  from  attempt- 
ing flights  for  which  her  graceful  wings  are 
not  strong  enough.  Most  of  her  music  is 
characterized  by  a  fascinating  archness  and 
coquetry  and  requires  quick  and  sudden 
changes  in  time  for  its  proper  interpretation. 
While  rarely  attempting  the  larger  musical 
forms,  she  has  been  an  industrious  student 
of  the  best  music,  so  that  all  her  compositions 
are  what  is  called  "  well  made,"  correct  ac- 
6  71 


THE  PIANOLIST 

cording  to  the  rules  of  musical  science,  yet 
in  melodic  and  harmonic  inspiration  char- 
acterized by  originality  and  musical  inven- 
tiveness. She  writes  with  judgment,  refine- 
ment and  taste,  avoiding  on  the  one  hand  the 
pitfall  of  pretentiousness,  and,  on  the  other, 
the  monotony  of  platitude  found  in  the 
works  of  those  who  compose  in  the  larger 
forms  but  lack  the  originality  to  fill  them 
with  new  and  interesting  matter.  It  is  a 
great  thing  to  know  your  limitations,  yet  to 
be  able  to  do  vivid  and  original  work  within 
them. 

Brief  as  is  Chaminade's  "  Serenade,"  Op. 
29,  its  melody  is  charming,  it  is  ably  har- 
monized and  it  appeals  to  the  heart.  There 
is  not  a  commonplace  bar  in  it.  It  is  one 
of  those  delicate  bits  of  inspiration  which 
survive  other  and  seemingly  grander  works, 
the  grandeur  of  which,  however,  is  in  course 
of  time,  discovered  to  be  mere  hollow  pre- 
72 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

tentiousness.  It  is  a  capital  example  of  the 
manner  in  which  this  composer  writes  in  the 
small  genre — delicate,  refined  and  sensitive. 
She  has  been  highly  successful  in  composi- 
tions in  dance  form,  managing  these  with- 
out a  suggestion  of  the  trivial.  Thus  her 
"Air  de  Ballet,"  Op.  30,  No.  i,  is  full  of 
brilliancy  and  nervous  energy  without  ever 
degenerating  into  vulgar  noisiness.  Another 
"Air  de  Ballet"  by  her  from  the  ballet 
"  Callirhoe,"  to  which  her  widely  known 
"  Scarf  Dance  "  also  belongs,  is  crisp,  bright 
and  dainty.  "  Callirhoe  "  is  a  ballet-sym- 
phonique  for  stage  performance  and  its  pro- 
duction showed  her  to  be  so  well  grounded 
in  her  art  that  it  does  not  suffer  even  under 
the  pressure  of  rapid  composition,  or  of  be- 
ing obliged  to  work  "  on  time."  The  com- 
mission for  this  ballet  was  offered  to  Godard, 
a  well-known  French  composer.  He  was, 
however,  occupied  with  an  opera  and  de- 

73 


clined  the  work,  at  the  same  time  recom- 
mending that  the  commission  be  offered  to 
Chaminade.  It  was  accepted  by  her  and 
within  six  weeks  from  the  day  when  she 
began  work  upon  it,  it  was  completed  even 
to  the  scoring  for  orchestra. 

While  the  pianolist  hardly  can  go  amiss 
in  choosing  from  among  the  list  of  Cham- 
inade's  compositions  I  may  mention  as 
especially  characteristic  her  "  Arabesque," 
"  Humoresque,"  La  Lisonjera  (Flatterer) 
"  Pierrette,"  "  Scaramouche  "  (Mountebank) 
and  "  Spinning  Wheel." 

Chaminade's  compositions  are  so  popular 
in  this  country  yet  so  little  is  known  about 
her  personally,  that  I  have  secured  a  few  per- 
sonal data  concerning  her  from  my  friend, 
Mr.  Percy  Mitchell,  who  is  attached  to  the 
staff  of  an  American  paper  in  Paris.  Mme. 
Carbonel-Chaminade  has  a  shock  of  dark, 
curly,  short-cropped  hair  which  gives  her  a 
74 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

boyish  aspect,  a  touch  of  masculinity  fur- 
ther emphasized  by  a  tailor-made  costume 
with  stiff,  white,  turned-down  collar  and 
loosely  tied  scarf.  Beyond  this  aspect,  how- 
ever, there  is  nothing  mannish  about  her. 
She  cares  neither  for  sport  nor  exercise  in 
general;  her  principal  occupation  is  musical 
composition,  her  chief  relaxation  practicing 
the  pianoforte  two  hours  a  day;  and  she 
reads  an  immense  amount  of  poetry  from 
which  she  carefully  selects  the  words  for  her 
songs.  Society  she  abhors,  but  she  attends 
scrupulously  to  her  large  correspondence. 
Very  many  of  these  letters  come  from 
America,  and  in  a  practical  spirit  truly 
American  seek  information  regarding  the 
interpretation  of  her  works.  "  How  should 
your  l  Serenade '  be  phrased? — I  am  learn- 
ing the  l  Scarf  Dance.'  By  this  same  mail 
I  am  sending  you  a  copy  of  it.  Would  you 
kindly  mark  the  phrasing  in  it  and  return 

75 


THE  PIANOLIST 

it  to  me? "  In  connection  with  questions 
of  this  kind  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
practically  all  of  Chaminade's  compositions 
have  been  metrostyled  for  the  pianola  by  the 
composer  herself.  The  pianolist  at  least 
will  not  find  it  necessary  to  trouble  her  with 
questions  like  the  above. 

Probably  no  composer  has  had  one  set 
method  of  work.  It  is  apt  to  vary  accord- 
ing to  surroundings.  So  with  Chaminade. 
She  may  write  while  seated  at  her  piano- 
forte, testing  her  thoughts  on  the  keyboard 
and  even  working  them  out  in  detail  before 
putting  them  on  paper.  Or  she  may  sit  at 
her  table,  a  vast  velvet-covered  affair  taking 
up  nearly  half  of  her  studio.  Sometimes  an 
idea  that  has  haunted  her  for  weeks  may 
take  definite  shape  while  she  is  speeding  on 
a  train  to  fulfill  a  concert  engagement  and 
she  will  jot  it  down  in  spite  of  the  roar 
and  vibration  of  railway  travel.  As  the 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

train  rushes  on  the  composition  may  be  com- 
pletely worked  out  in  the  composer's  mind 
before  the  journey's  end,  and  so  retentive 
is  Chaminade's  memory  that,  when  she  re- 
turns to  her  villa  in  Vesinet,  near  the  forest 
of  St.  Germain  not  far  from  Paris,  she  can 
seat  herself  at  her  table  and  copy  the  work 
from  that  mental  vision  of  it  which  she  had 
on  the  train. 

Some  years  ago  during  a  semi-professional 
tour  which  she  made  through  Roumania, 
Servia  and  Greece,  she  was  invited  to  play 
for  the  students  of  the  Athens  conservatory. 
When  she  stepped  on  the  stage  she  saw  row 
after  row  of  young  people  armed  with  the 
printed  music  of  what  she  was  about  to 
play  and  prepared  in  a  cold-blooded,  busi- 
ness-like way  to  open  the  music  of  the  first 
number  on  the  program  and  to  follow  the 
concert  note  for  note  from  the  printed  scores 
from  beginning  to  end.  Imagine  the  effect 

77 


THE  PIANOLIST 

upon  her  nerves  produced  by  the  rustling 
of  one  hundred  pages  all  being  turned  at 
the  same  instant  at  intervals  during  the 
concert;  and  even  now  she  laughingly  con- 
fesses that  she  was  nearly  overcome  with 
stage  fright  and  prays  she  may  never  have 
to  endure  again  such  an  ordeal  as  the  music 
students  of  Athens  unwittingly  prepared  for 
her. 

With  the  exception  of  Nevin,  the  com- 
posers whose  works  I  have  mentioned  are 
living  and  actively  engaged  in  composition. 
The  piece  to  which  I  now  desire  to  call  the 
pianolist's  attention  belongs  to  the  dawn  of 
the  romantic  period  in  music.  It  was  com- 
posed by  Weber  who  died  in  1826,  is  en- 
titled "  Invitation  to  the  Dance,"  was  written 
a  few  months  after  his  happy  marriage  with 
the  opera  singer  Caroline  Brandt,  and  is 
dedicated  to  "  My  Caroline."  Because 
Weber  was  one  of  the  first  composers  who 

78 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

rank  as  great  to  give  distinctly  descriptive 
titles  to  compositions,  and  because  of  certain 
other  characteristics  in  his  works,  he  is 
regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  romantic 
school  of  music — music  which  is  not  simply 
sufficient  unto  itself  but  has  a  secondary 
meaning  that  adds  immeasurably  to  its  inter- 
ests; music  which  seeks  to  suggest  a  definite 
mood  and  even  to  throw  a  realistic  picture 
of  some  scene  in  nature  or  some  human  ex- 
perience upon  a  background  of  harmony  and 
instrumental  coloring;  and  which  cares  less 
for  the  artifices  of  form  than  for  the  expres- 
sion of  the  true  and  the  beautiful  from  the 
standpoint  of  modern  art. 

The  "  Invitation  to  the  Dance "  derives 
further  interest  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
the  first  composition  to  lift  the  waltz,  which 
up  to  that  time  had  been  employed  simply 
as  an  accompaniment  for  dancing,  to  the 
level  of  other  legitimate  and  recognized 

79 


THE  PIANOLIST 

artistic  musical  forms.  The  composition 
opens  with  an  introduction  in  slow  time, 
the  first  phrase  unmistakably  being  the  voice 
of  the  man  conveying  to  the  lady  an  invita- 
tion to  dance.  You  hear  her  playful  ob- 
jection— undoubtedly  she  wants  to  be  asked 
a  second  time — the  repetition  of  his  invita- 
tion, her  assent,  the  short  dialogue  as  the 
two  step  out  on  the  floor;  brief,  but  resonant 
preluding  chords;  then  the  free,  elastic 
rhythm  of  the  waltz  followed  by  its  gay, 
dashing  melody.  There  is  an  exuberance 
of  runs  and  ornamentations  until  the  first 
feeling  of  elation  lapses  into  a  second 
dreamy,  languorous  waltz  melody,  as  if  the 
dancers  were  floating  on  the  scented  atmos- 
phere of  the  ballroom.  In  portions  of  this 
there  is  a  sentimental  colloquy  between  the 
couple  whom  we  met  in  the  introduction,  the 
two  voices  being  clearly  differentiated.  The 
little  duet  between  them  adds  to  the  beauty 
80 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  NOVICE 

and  interest  of  this  portion  of  the  work,  the 
melody  of  which  simply  is  exquisite.  Then 
everything  whirls  and  sparkles  again  and, 
when  the  dance  has  ceased,  there  is  a  briefer 
recapitulation  of  the  introduction,  the  lady 
is  led  back  to  her  seat,  and  the  episode  comes 
to  an  end. 

The  pianolist  may  now  place  Liszt's 
"Campanella"  (Bell  rondo)  on  the  instru- 
ment. Originally  this  was  composed  by  the 
famous  violinist  Paganini.  Liszt  trans- 
cribed it  for  the  pianoforte  and  so  success- 
fully that  now  it  is  better  known  in  his 
version  than  in  its  original  form.  It  is  a 
piece  which  can  be  described  only  by  one 
word — delicious.  Its  title  is  immediately 
understood  by  the  unmistakable  silvery 
tinkle  of  a  bell  in  the  high  treble,  constantly 
recurring,  but  always  with  added  instead  of 
diminishing,  beauty.  On  the  pianoforte  it 
demands  virtuosity  of  the  highest  rank,  yet 

81 


THE  PIANOLIST 

for  the  pianolist  it  is  as  easy  to  play  as  is 
the  simplest  pianoforte  piece  intended  for 
a  beginner. 

And  so,  having  begun  this  chapter  with 
Nevin,  one  of  the  lighter  composers  of  pro- 
nounced merit,  the  pianolist  already  finds 
himself  playing  a  work  by  Weber  and  an- 
other by  Liszt,  two  of  the  most  famous 
figures  in  musical  history.  Even  if,  as  I 
trust  will  be  the  case,  he  becomes  so  inter- 
ested in  the  works  I  have  cited  in  this 
chapter,  as  to  try  much  other  music  by  the 
same  composers,  he  will,  in  an  almost  in- 
credibly short  space  of  time,  be  ready  for 
the  thrill  of  the  great  masters — which  shows 
that,  after  all,  the  sequence  I  am  following 
in  this  book  is  not  as  haphazard  as  some  may 
think. 


82 


IV.  THE  THRILL  OF  THE  GREAT 
MASTERS 

TN  his  choice  of  music  the  pianolist  need 
•*•  not  pause  to  consider  the  slow  evolution 
of  the  art  from  the  simple  to  the  more 
complex,  since  for  him  nothing  is  complex. 
Thus  he  is  free  to  disregard  all  traditions, 
even  such  an  absurd  one,  for  example,  as 
that  which  insists  that  a  sonata  or  symphony 
should  be  played  as  a  whole,  that,  if  a  work 
in  this  form  consists  of  three  or  four  move- 
ments, none  of  these  should  be  "  lifted  "  out 
of  the  whole  and  played  as  a  separate  com- 
position. 

The  pianolist  calmly  looks  upon  these 
movements  as  so  many  different  pieces  and 
chooses  between  them.  Thus  among  the 
hundred  classical  compositions  most  in  de- 
mand by  pianolists,  the  slow  movement  of 
Beethoven's  "  Fifth  Symphony  "  ranks  seven- 
teenth, while  the  first  is  as  far  down  on  the 
list  as  thirty-seventh,  and  the  roll  with  the 

83 


THE  PIANOLIST 

last  two  movements  as  sixty-fifth.  That  in 
future  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  thousands 
of  music  lovers  who  are  unhampered  by 
pedantic  tradition,  will  have  immense  in- 
fluence in  determining  the  standard  of  com- 
posers and  of  their  several  works,  and  will 
have  immense  effect  in  hastening  the  intro- 
duction and  appreciation  of  works  by  new 
composers,  in  spite  of  opposition  from  the 
ultra-conservative  element,  goes  without  say- 
ing, and  will  be  one  of  the  most  important 
factors  in  the  revolution  this  new  musical 
instrument  is  destined  to  effect. 

All  this  readily  can  be  appreciated  when 
the  attitude  of  this  great  musical  public 
toward  Liszt's  "  Hungarian  Rhapsodies  "  is 
taken  into  account.  For  years  the  critical 
camp  has  been  divided  on  Liszt,  some  con- 
sidering him  a  composer  whose  unequalled 
greatness  as  a  player  of  the  pianoforte  led 
him  to  write  music  that  was  superficially 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

brilliant  but  barren  of  genuine  musical  in- 
spiration. Others,  like  Henry  T.  Finck  and 
that  band  of  advanced  commentators  on 
music  among  whom  I  am  proud  to  number 
myself,  unhesitatingly  rank  him  with  the 
greatest  composers.  This  phase  of  musical 
life,  this  warring  of  factions,  the  pianolist 
happily  ignores  entirely,  and  following  his 
unbiased  intuition,  places  Liszt's  second 
"  Hungarian  Rhapsody  "  at  the  head  of  the 
repertory,  closely  follows  it  with  the  twelfth 
and  fourteenth,  and,  all  told,  includes  nine 
of  these  fifteen  compositions  in  the  top  list 
of  one  hundred  pieces  of  serious  music 
which  have  proved  most  popular  with  pia- 
nola players.  The  pianolist  is  not  aware 
of  the  fact,  but  that  most  inexorable  of  all 
critics,  time,  most  emphatically  justifies  his 
choice. 

Liszt  brought  out  these  rhapsodies  fifty- 
three  years  ago.     They  are  not  compositions 


THE  PIANOLIST 

which  suddenly  are  offering  themselves  as 
candidates  for  popular  favor.  For  more 
than  half  a  century  has  passed  over  these 
master  works,  which  still  are  as  fresh  and 
modern  as  if  they  had  been  struck  off  but 
yesterday  in  the  white  heat  of  inspiration. 
Their  roots  go  back  even  further  than  fifty- 
three  years.  As  long  ago  as  1838  Liszt 
published  them  as  short  transcriptions  of 
Hungarian  tunes.  Then  he  worked  them 
over  and,  in  1846,  issued  them  in  somewhat 
more  elaborate  form  as  "  Melodies  Hong- 
roises."  Still  further  elaborated  they  be- 
came in  1854  the  "  Rhapsodies  Hongroises " 
as  we  know  them. 

These  rhapsodies  reflect  the  weird  roman- 
ticism of  that  most  mysterious  and  fascinat- 
ing of  races,  the  Gypsies,  as  successfully  as 
Chopin's  music  reflects  the  crushed  aspira- 
tions of  his  unhappy  country,  Poland.  Al- 
though they  are  called  Hungarian,  they  are 
86 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

neither  derived  from  nor  founded  upon 
national  Hungarian  music,  but  are  purely 
of  Gypsy  origin.  The  Hungarians,  how- 
ever, have  adopted  the  Gypsies  as  their 
national  musicians,  and  it  is  by  reason  of 
this  adoption,  or,  in  order  to  express  through 
the  title  this  mutual  assimilation,  that  Liszt 
has  called  these  rhapsodies  "  Hungarian." 
With  a  Gypsy  parentage  so  authentic  that 
he  speaks  of  the  melodies  on  which  they 
are  based,  as  "  the  songs  without  words " 
of  the  Gypsies,  his  rhapsodies  form  the 
only  channel  through  which  the  intense 
inner  life  and  mystic  idealism  of  this  strange 
race  has  found  expression.  They  are  the 
long  suppressed  cry  of  souls  struggling  for 
self  utterance  and  they  constitute  nothing 
less  than  an  epic,  the  "  Iliad,"  of  that  strange 
race  which  centuries  ago  cast  itself  upon 
the  continent  of  Europe  like  a  wave  coming, 
none  knew  from  where  or  whither  bound. 

7  87 


THE  PIANOLIST 

This  race,  as  Liszt  describes  it  in  his  book 
on  Gypsy  music,  brought  no  memories,  be- 
trayed no  hope;  possessed  no  country,  re- 
ligion, history.  Divided  into  tribes,  hordes 
and  bands,  wandering  hither  and  thither, 
following  each  the  route  dictated  by  chance, 
they  still  preserve  under  the  most  distant 
meridian,  the  same  infallible  rallying  signs, 
the  same  physiognomy,  the  same  language, 
the  same  traditions.  The  ages  pass.  The 
world  progresses.  Countries  make  war  or 
peace,  change  masters  and  manners,  but  this 
people  that  shares  the  joys,  the  sorrows,  the 
prosperity  and  the  misfortunes  of  none  other; 
that  laughs  at  the  ambitions,  the  tears,  the 
combats  of  civilization;  still  obstinately 
clings  to  its  hunger  and  its  liberty,  its  tents 
and  its  tatters,  and  still  exercises,  as  it  has 
exercised  for  centuries,  an  indescribable  and 
indestructible  fascination  upon  poetic  minds, 
passing  it  on  as  a  mysterious  legacy  from 
age  to  age. 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

Such  is  the  race  of  which  Liszt  recites  the 
epic  in  the  "  Hungarian  Rhapsodies."  They 
portray  the  life,  the  scenes,  the  mood  of  the 
Gypsy  camp,  vividly,  brilliantly,  yet  with  an 
undercurrent  of  tragedy — the  tragedy  of 
homeless  wanderers.  Because  they  repre- 
sent life,  because  they  are  true  to  life,  be- 
cause they  depict  life  with  a  wonderful 
union  of  realism  and  beauty,  they  will,  in 
spite  of  critical  detraction,  live  as  long  as 
the  Bach  fugues,  the  Beethoven  sonatas  or 
the  Wagner  music  dramas. 

An  elaborate  musical  analysis  of  these 
wonderful  works  would  be  futile.  They 
are  too  racial,  and  in  parts  too  pictorial  to 
be  dissected  in  narrative  style.  What  I  have 
said  of  the  race  from  which  they  derive 
their  characteristics  should  serve  as  a  gen- 
eral explanation  of  their  purport.  The  sec- 
ond, twelfth  and  fourteenth  rhapsodies  are 
admirable  examples  of  the  series.  In  gen- 


THE  PIANOLIST 

eral  these  "  Hungarian  Rhapsodies "  open 
with  a  few  brief  bars  suggestive  of  tragic 
recitative,  which  leads  into  a  broad  yet 
strongly  marked  and  searching  rhythm,  upon 
which  is  built  a  slow,  stately  yet  mournful 
melody,  broken  in  upon  here  and  there  by 
strange  weird  runs  and  rapid  passages. 
These  latter  serve  a  double  purpose.  They 
imitate  the  curious  aeolian  harp  effects  of 
the  most  characteristic  instrument  of  the 
Gypsy  orchestra,  the  cembalon,  a  large, 
shallow  box  with  strings  about  as  numerous 
as  those  of  the  pianoforte,  and  played  with 
two  little  mallets,  with  which  the  player  pro- 
duces the  weird  arpeggios  or  rapid,  broken 
chords  and  the  improvised  runs  character- 
istic of  Hungarian  Gypsy  music;  and  they 
also  prepare  the  player  and  listener  for  the 
rapid  movement  into  which  the  slow  melody 
passes  over,  finally  to  dash  into  the  very 
frenzy  of  emotional  and  physical  excitement. 
90 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

These  three  divisions,  the  slow  movement 
introduced  by  a  recitative,  the  rapid  move- 
ment following,  and  the  still  more  rapid  one 
with  which  the  rhapsodies  generally  end,  are 
based  upon  three  distinct  kinds  of  melodies 
of  the  Gypsies,  and  their  startling  contrast 
contributes  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  com- 
position. The  slow  melody  in  the  first  part  of 
the  rhapsodies  (a  different  melody  in  each 
rhapsody  of  course)  is  the  "  lassan,"  a  sad 
song  giving  utterance  to  the  pathos  of  the 
race.  The  dance  music  that  follows,  so  full 
of  playful  humor,  grace,  caprice,  coquetry 
and  dashing  contrast,  is  the  "frischka"; 
while  the  delirium,  almost  demoniac  in  its 
fury,  with  which  the  rhapsody  rushes  to  its 
intoxicating  finale,  and  compared  with 
which  the  Italian  tarantella  and  even  the 
Dervish  dance  of  the  East  are  tame,  is  the 
"  czardas."  In  playing  these  rhapsodies  one 
must  try  to  imagine  a  Gypsy  camp,  the 


THE  PIANOLIST 

flicker  of  firelight  in  the  deep  forest  or  on 
the  wild  plains  of  Hungary,  a  sense  of 
loneliness  or  of  vast  distance,  forms  of 
swarthy  men  and  women  suddenly  appearing 
from  a  shadowy  background  to  be  illumined 
for  a  moment  in  the  light  of  the  fire,  their 
swaying,  whirling  forms  vanishing  the  next, 
back  into  the  vague  darkness  from  which 
they  issued.  Of  the  "  Hungarian  Rhap- 
sodies "  hostile  critics  may  say  what  they 
please;  he  who  plays  them  understandingly, 
will  feel  in  them  the  thrill  of  a  great  master. 
A  composition  of  impassioned,  yet  mourn- 
ful beauty  is  Liszt's  "  Liebestraum  "  (Dream 
of  Love)  one  of  a  set  of  three  nocturnes, 
this  one  being  based  upon  a  well  known 
German  poem,  Freiligrath's, 

O  love  as  long  as  love  thou  canst, 

O  love  as  long  as  love  will  keep; 
The  day  will  come,  the  day  will  come, 
When  at  a  grave  you  stand  and  weep. 
92 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

Liszt's  "At  the  Spring "  is  a  charming 
composition  somewhat  in  the  same  style  as 
the  "  Campanella,"  but  instead  of  describing 
silver-toned  chimes  of  bells,  reproducing  the 
purl  of  a  bosky  spring.  One  hears  the  clear 
rippling  water  and  sees  its  sparkling  jets 
in  glints  of  sunlight,  as  it  dashes  against  the 
stones,  and  its  shimmering  spray.  The 
work  is  the  forerunner  and  model  of  numer- 
ous similar  pieces,  all  of  them,  however, 
lacking  its  freshness  and  originality  and  its 
high  order  of  musicianship. 

The  pianolist  who  is  led  by  the  examples 
of  Liszt's  music  which  I  have  cited  to 
choose  liberally  from  the  numerous  compo- 
sitions by  him  in  the  catalogue  of  music 
rolls,  hardly  can  go  amiss.  If,  however, 
he  prefers  to  leave  this  for  some  other  time, 
and  to  turn  to  another  composer,  he  will 
find  Mendelssohn's  "  Rondo  Capriccioso," 
Op.  14,  a  capital  roll.  This  rondo  was  com- 

93 


THE  PIANOLIST 

posed  in  1826,  the  same  year  in  which  he 
wrote  the  overture  to  Shakespere's  "  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,"  with  its  wonder- 
ful depiction  of  fairy  life.  The  "  Rondo 
Capriccioso  "  might  be  part  of  the  "  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream "  music,  it  is  so 
much  in  the  same  character.  Nothing  could 
be  more  crisp  and  dainty.  It  seems  to  depict 
elves  romping  through  the  forest  by  moon- 
light. Nor  is  it  without  romantic  moods, 
as  if  love-making  were  going  on  even  among 
these  light-footed,  light-hearted  revelers. 
But  when  this  is  said,  it  still  is  all  touch 
and  go;  a  breath,  a  sigh,  the  iridescence  of 
the  moonglade  on  a  woodland  lake — then 
off  and  away: — 

Over  hill,  over  dale, 

Through  brush,  through  brier, 

Over  park,  over  vale, 

Through  flood,  through  fire, 

94 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

I  do  wander  everywhere, 
Swifter  than  the  moon's  sphere ; 
And  I  serve  the  fairy  queen, 
To  dew  her  orbs  upon  the  green. 

or 

Light  as  any  wind  that  blows 

So  fleetly  did  she  stir, 
The  flower  she  touch'd  on  dipt  and  rose, 

And  turned  to  look  at  her. 

This  "  Rondo  Capriccioso "  is  indeed  a 
fascinating  piece,  written  in  its  composer's 
most  facile  vein.  It  is  one  of  the  finest 
rolls  from  among  which  the  pianolist  can 
select.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Men- 
delssohn has  been  losing  ground  as  com- 
pared with  the  enormous  popularity  which 
he  enjoyed  in  his  lifetime.  But  the  pend- 
ulum has  swung  too  much  the  other  way. 
Certain  of  his  compositions  have  been  too 
much  neglected.  The  "  Rondo  Capriccioso  " 
is  one  of  them.  As  it  actually  sounds 

95 


THE  PIANOLIST 

crisper  and  daintier  on  the  pianola  than  on 
the  pianoforte  no  matter  by  whom  played, 
it  enjoys  well  merited  popularity  in  the 
pianolist's  repertory  and  may  contribute 
toward  restoring  the  appreciation  of  Men- 
delssohn's music  to  its  proper  balance. 

I  would  be  greatly  surprised  if  a  beauti- 
ful work  like  Schubert's  "  Rosamunde  "  im- 
promptu were  not  among  the  most  popular 
pieces  of  the  pianolist's  choice.  The  word 
impromptu  is  sufficiently  self-explanatory, 
but  it  needs  to  be  pointed  out  that  this 
work  of  Schubert's  differs  from  the  usual 
impromptu  in  being  an  air  with  variations, 
the  variations,  however,  giving  the  impres- 
sion of  free  fantasies  or  improvisations  on 
the  original  air.  There  are  five  variations 
and  the  composition  ends  with  a  repetition 
of  the  air. 

The  work  is  written  in  the  truest  Schu- 
bertian  style.  I  like  to  fancy  that  the 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

melody  with  its  serene,  lyric  beauty  is  a  pic- 
ture of  the  fair  Rosamunde  herself.  The 
first  variation,  a  plaintive  melody  over  an 
agitated  accompaniment,  I  should  be  in- 
clined, still  referring  to  Rosamunde  and  re- 
garding each  variation  as  expressing  an  ex- 
perience in  her  life,  to  entitle  "  Moods." 
The  second  variation  is  more  playful  in 
character  but  without  any  loss  of  romantic 
charm,  and  I  should  say  that  we  might 
call  it  an  expression  of  her  "  Fancies." 
The  third  an  impassioned  meditation,  a 
cry  from  the  heart,  Rosamunde's  heart,  may 
be  called  "  Love."  The  fourth  variation, 
which  again  is  frankly  playful  like  the 
second,  is  "  Hope."  The  fifth,  as  brilliant 
as  a  cascade  on  which  the  sun  is  shining, 
is  "  Joy."  It  ends  suddenly  without  com- 
ing to  a  full  stop  in  the  musical  sense,  and, 
after  a  pause,  the  original  air  now  couched 
in  broad  and  beautiful  chords,  begins  in  the 

97 


THE  PIANOLIST 

lower  register,  rises  successively  to  the  mid- 
dle and  higher  ones,  then  dies  away — an 
exquisite  ending.  Is  this  not  Rosamunde, 
the  more  charming  for  the  romance  of 
which  she  is  the  heroine;  Rosamunde,  look- 
ing at  her  engagement  ring,  musing  on  the 
past  and  trustful  of  the  future? 

Schubert  was  one  of  the  most  famous  song 
composers  and  Liszt  in  addition  to  being 
an  original  composer,  rendered  a  great  ser- 
vice to  music  by  transcribing,  in  most  ad- 
mirable style,  many  of  Schubert's  most  fam- 
ous songs  for  pianoforte.  Widely  known 
as  they  are  for  voice,  they  have  through 
these  transcriptions  become  almost  as  famil- 
iar for  pianoforte.  The  delicate  and  dainty 
"  Hark,  Hark  the  Lark  "  is  a  favorite  work 
in  Paderewski's  repertory.  So  spontaneous 
was  Schubert's  inspiration  that  he  wrote  the 
music  of  this  song  at  a  tavern  where  he 
chanced  to  see  the  poem  in  a  book  which 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

he  was  examining.  "  If  only  I  had  some 
music  paper!"  he  exclaimed.  One  of  his 
friends  promptly  ruled  lines  on  the  back  of 
his  bill  of  fare  and  Schubert,  with  the  varied 
noises  of  the  tavern  going  on  about  him, 
jotted  down  the  song  then  and  there. 

Another  splendid  Schubert  song  that  has 
been  made  popular  on  the  pianoforte  through 
Listz's  transcription  is  "  The  Erlking."  As 
it  ranks  among  the  greatest  songs,  and  by 
many  people  actually  is  considered  the  great- 
est, the  illustration  it  affords  of  the  rapidity 
with  which  Schubert  worked  is  most  inter- 
esting. Two  friends  calling  upon  him  one 
afternoon,  toward  the  close  of  the  year  1815, 
found  him  all  aglow  reading  "  The  Erlking  " 
aloud  to  himself.  Having  read  the  poem, 
he  walked  up  and  down  the  room  several 
times,  book  in  hand,  then  suddenly  dropped 
into  a  chair,  and,  without  a  moment's  pause 
and  as  fast  as  his  pen  could  travel  over  the 

99 


THE  PIANOLIST 

paper,  composed  the  song.  Schubert  had 
no  pianoforte,  so  the  three  men  hurried  over 
to  the  school  where  formerly  he  had  been 
trained  for  the  Imperial  choir — this  was  in 
Vienna — and  there  "  The  Erlking "  was 
sung  the  same  evening  and  received  with 
enthusiasm.  Afterwards  the  Court  organist 
played  it  over  himself  without  the  voice,  and, 
some  of  those  present  objecting  to  the  dis- 
sonances which  depict  the  child's  terror  of 
the  Erlking,  the  organist  struck  these  chords 
again  and  explained  how  admirably  they 
expressed  the  situation  described  in  the  poem 
and  how  well  they  were  worked  out  mus- 
ically. Schubert  was  only  thirty-one  when 
he  died  and  was  only  eighteen  when  he  set 
this  poem  of  Goethe's  to  music,  yet  the 
whole  song  is  almost  Wagnerian  in  its  de- 
scriptive and  dramatic  qualities,  and  its 
climax  thrilling. 

The   work    of    Beethoven's   which    seems 
100 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

most  to  appeal  to  the  pianolist  is  the  "  Moon- 
light" sonata.  Possibly  the  attractive  title, 
which,  however,  Beethoven  probably  did 
not  give  to  it,  may  have  something  to  do 
with  its  selection.  But  why  not  attribute 
its  popularity  to  the  fact  that  the  music 
bears  out  the  title? 

A  sonata  is  a  composition  in  several  move- 
ments, usually  four,  and  follows  a  clearly 
outlined,  in  fact,  an  almost  rigid  form,  not 
to  say  formula.  It  attained  its  highest  de- 
velopment during  the  classical  period  and 
left  its  impress  upon  all  the  larger  composi- 
tions of  that  time,  for  a  symphony  is  nothing 
more  than  a  sonata  composed  for  orchestra, 
instead  of  for  the  pianoforte,  and  trios,  quar- 
tets, and  other  pieces  of  chamber  music  of 
the  classical  period  are  sonatas  for  the  corre- 
sponding combination  of  instruments. 

The  "  Moonlight  Sonata,"  however,  is 
less  rigid  in  form  than  the  average  sonata. 

IOT 


THE  PIANOLIST 

In  it,  in  fact,  Beethoven  may  be  said  to  have 
broken  away  from  form,  for  after  the  word 
sonata  he  adds  the  qualifying  phrase  "  quasi 
una  fantasia,"  signifying  that,  although  he 
calls  the  work  a  sonata,  it  has  the  character- 
istics of  a  free  fantasy. 

Instead  of  opening  with  the  usual  rapid 
movement,  the  work  begins  with  a  broad 
and  beautiful  slow  one,  a  sustained  melody, 
a  poem  of  profound  pathos  in  musical  ac- 
cents. This  is  followed  by  a  lighter  alle- 
gretto which  Liszt  called  "  a  flower  'twixt 
two  abysses,"  the  second  "  abyss "  being  the 
last  movement,  which  is  one  of  Beethoven's 
most  impassioned  creations.  At  the  end 
both  of  the  first  movement  and  of  the  alle- 
gretto the  usual  wait  between  the  divisions 
of  a  sonata  is  omitted,  Beethoven  giving  the 
direction  "  attacca  subito  il  sequente,"  liter- 
ally meaning  "  attack  suddenly  the  follow- 
ing," indicating  an  inner  relationship  be- 
102 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

tween  the  movements  so  close  that  there 
must  be  only  the  briefest  possible  pause  be- 
tween them. 

This  sonata  is  a  true  drama  of  life,  a  story 
of  unrequited  passion.  It  is  dedicated  to 
one  of  the  great  beauties  of  Beethoven's  time, 
the  Countess  Giulietta  Guicciardi.  Although 
it  is  known  that  the  composer  subsequently 
was  deeply  in  love  with  her  cousin,  the 
Countess  Therese  Brunswick,  he  is  believed 
to  have  been  in  love  with  Giulietta  at  the 
time  he  wrote  the  "  Moonlight  Sonata."  The 
countess  was  not  insensible  to  his  passion. 
She  already  was  engaged  to  Count  Gallen- 
berg,  but  one  day,  coming  excitedly  into  the 
presence  of  her  cousin  Therese,  she  threw 
herself  at  the  latter's  feet,  "  like  a  stage 
princess,"  and  exclaimed:  "  Counsel  me,  cold, 
wise  one!  I  long  to  give  Gallenberg  the 
mitten  and  marry  the  wonderfully  ugly,  won- 
derfully beautiful  Beethoven,  if  only  it  did 
8  103 


THE  PIANOLIST 

not  involve  lowering  myself  socially."  And 
so  she  gave  up  Beethoven  and  led  a  life, 
none  too  happy,  with  her  Count.  Connect- 
ing the  "  Moonlight  Sonata  "  with  this  epi- 
sode in  Beethoven's  life,  the  first  movement 
of  the  sonata  may  appropriately  be  regarded 
as  a  song  of  love,  deeply  pathetic  because  no 
response  is  evoked  by  the  longing  it  expresses. 
The  second  movement,  the  graceful  alle- 
gretto, is  the  coquetish  Giulietta  who  would 
not  "  lower  herself  socially  "  by  marrying  a 
genius.  The  third  movement  is  the  rejected 
lover  crying  out  his  passion  and  despair  to 
the  night. 

From  Beethoven  to  Grieg,  from  Vienna 
to  Norway,  from  the  greatest  master  of  the 
classical  period  to  a  composer  who  still  is 
living  and  who  has  been  called  not  in- 
aptly, "  the  Chopin  of  the  North,"  may 
seem  a  long  step.  But  the  pianolist  can 
travel  with  seven  league  boots.  Grieg's 
104 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

most  widely  known  compositions  are  four 
of  the  pieces  of  incidental  music  which  he 
wrote  to  Ibsen's  drama  "  Peer  Gynt."  Peer 
Gynt  is  the  Faust  of  Norwegian  literature. 
Without  attempting  here  to  follow  up  this 
parallel,  it  may  be  said  that  he  is  a  curious 
combination  of  ne'er-do-well,  dreamer  and 
philosopher,  with  a  pronounced  streak  of 
impishness  running  through  his  character 
and  giving  a  touch  of  the  extravagant  and 
grotesque  to  many  of  his  actions  and  to 
some  of  them  even  a  suggestion  of  the  weird 
and  supernatural. 

"  Peer  Gynt "  has  its  roots  in  Norwegian 
folklore  and  was  written  by  Ibsen  in  Italy 
when  he  was  about  thirty-seven  years  old, 
and  it  precedes  the  problem  plays  by  which 
he  is  best  known,  although  Peer's  character 
is  in  itself  a  complex  problem.  Grieg  in 
his  incidental  music,  adroitly  avoids  the 
difficult  task  of  interpreting  or  even  hinting 

105 


THE  PIANOLIST 

at  the  curiously  contradictory  nature  of  the 
principal  role  in  the  play,  one  of  the  most 
interesting  psychological  studies  in  modern 
literature.  His  music  deals  with  the  more 
superficial  aspects  of  the  story  and  is  pic- 
torial rather  than  intellectual  or  profoundly 
emotional.  The  principal  selections  for 
the  piano-player  from  the  "  Peer  Gynt " 
music,  are  contained  on  two  rolls  with  two 
selections  to  each  roll.  One  of  them  gives 
the  music  of  "Anitra's  Dance  "  and  "  In  the 
Hall  of  the  Mountain  King";  the  other  the 
scenes  "  Daybreak  "  and  "  Death  of  Aase." 
Were  these  selections  to  be  arranged  in  the 
order  in  which  they  occur  in  the  drama  it 
would  be  necessary  to  begin  with  the  "  The 
Hall  of  the  Mountain  King"  and  follow 
this,  in  the  order  mentioned,  with  "  Aase's 
Death,"  "  Anitra's  Dance  "  and  "  Daybreak." 
On  the  rolls,  however,  the  pieces  are  not 
arranged  in  the  order  of  their  occurrence  in 
1 06 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

the  play,  but  in  the  sequence  which  is  most 
effective  from  a  musical  standpoint — just  as 
in  this  book  I  have  purposely  refrained 
from  following  any  set,  historical  sequence, 
but  have  adopted  a  purely  musical  method 
of  guiding  the  pianolist  from  music  of  the 
lighter  kind  to  that  of  a  more  serious  char- 
acter. 

"  Anitra's  Dance "  is  an  episode  of  the 
drama  laid  in  Morocco  which  Peer  has 
reached  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings. 
Anitra  is  a  lithe-limbed  daughter  of  the 
East  who  entrances  Peer  with  her  dancing, 
and,  when  he  promises  to  endow  her  with 
a  soul,  promptly  informs  him  that  she  would 
rather  have  the  opal  from  his  turban;  grad- 
ually coaxes  all  his  jewels  from  him;  then 
swiftly  throws  herself  upon  his  horse  and 
gallops  away,  showing  herself  a  true  ex- 
emplar of  the  "  eternal  feminine,"  so  called, 
I  presume,  because  it  eternally  is  getting  the 

107 


THE  PIANOLIST 

better  of  the  eternal  masculine.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  "Anitra's  Dance  "  is  the  very  essence 
of  witchery  and  grace.  In  the  scene  "  In 
the  Hall  of  the  Mountain  King"  the  trolls 
gather  for  the  marriage  of  Peer  to  the  Troll 
King's  daughter.  When  Peer,  at  the  last 
moment,  refuses  to  go  through  the  cere- 
mony, the  trolls  dash  at  him.  One  bites 
himself  fast  to  his  ear.  Others  strike  him. 
He  falls.  They  throw  themselves  upon 
him  in  a  heap.  At  this  critical  moment, 
when  he  is  writhing  beneath  them  in  torture, 
the  sound  of  distant  church  bells  is  heard, 
the  trolls  take  to  flight,  the  palace  of  the 
Mountain  King  collapses  and  Peer  is  stand- 
ing alone  on  a  mountain.  The  scene  may 
be  construed  as  one  of  his  supernatural  ex- 
periences, as  a  nightmare,  or  as  the  allegory 
of  a  stricken  conscience.  "  Daybreak " 
which  opens  the  second  roll  is  in  Egypt, 
Peer  standing  before  the  statue  of  Memnon 
1 08 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

in  the  first  hush  of  dawn  and  waiting  for 
the  rays  of  the  rising  sun  to  evoke  the  music 
which  according  to  tradition  many  thou- 
sand years  old,  is  drawn  from  the  statue  by 
the  sunrise.  In  this  number  Grieg  paints 
the  colors  of  an  Oriental  daybreak  rather 
than  attempts  to  convey  the  thrill  of  an 
ancient  sculpture,  on  the  edge  of  the  great 
desert,  thrilling  with  song  at  the  first  kiss 
of  the  rising  sun.  In  the  "  Death  of  Aase  " 
Peer  watches  his  mother's  life  slowly  ebb 
away  and  seeks  to  divert  her  mind  from 
death  by  grotesque  tales,  even  throwing  him- 
self astride  a  chair  and  persuading  her 
through  subjective  suggestion,  that  he  is  the 
forerider  of  a  beautiful  chariot  in  which  she 
is  seated,  so  that  the  poor  woman,  who  all 
her  life  long  has  felt  the  pinch  of  penury, 
dies  with  a  vision  of  wealth  and  glory  be- 
fore her  eyes  created  for  her  by  the  son, 
worry  over  whom  has  hastened  her  death. 

109 


THE  PIANOLIST 

In  keeping  with  the  lyric  trend  of  his  genius, 
Grieg  has  ignored  the  grotesque  and  ghastly 
humor  of  the  situation,  and  has  contented 
himself  with  portraying  its  sombre  and 
tragic  aspect,  his  music  being  in  character 
somewhat  like  a  funeral  march. 

The  pianolist  will  find  a  characteristic 
Norwegian  touch  in  Grieg's  "  Bridal  Pro- 
cession Passing  By,"  Op.  19,  No.  2,  from 
his  "  Sketches  from  Norwegian  Life."  It 
begins  with  a  curiously  droning  rhythm, 
played  softly  as  though  the  procession  were 
approaching  from  a  distance.  Over  this 
rhythm  is  introduced  a  piquant  march  fig- 
ure, hopping  and  skipping  along  as  if  the 
musicians  were  dancing  at  the  head  of  the 
marchers.  As  the  procession  approaches 
and  the  music  becomes  louder,  one  hears  in 
the  bass  an  accentuation  of  the  characteristic 
rhythm,  like  the  tap  of  a  bass  drum.  When 
the  march  has  swelled  to  a  forte,  it  sinks  to 
no 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

a  brief  piano,  as  if  the  winding  path  had  led 
the  procession  away  again.  Then  there  is 
another  brief  outburst,  this  time  fortissimo, 
as  if  the  marchers  were  quite  near;  and  then 
a  pianissimo,  as  if  they  had  passed  behind 
a  hill  and  almost  out  of  hearing.  The  music 
grows  loud  again,  the  procession  goes  by, 
and  there  is  a  delicious  effect  as  the  march 
dies  away  in  the  distance,  the  rhythmic  beats 
with  which  it  opened  becoming  softer  and 
softer,  while  the  little  hopping  and  skipping 
march-figure,  somewhat  curtailed,  flutters 
over  it. 

Grieg's  "  Peer  Gynt "  suite  was  composed 
for  orchestra,  but  was  arranged  for  piano- 
forte by  the  composer.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  in  its  original  form  the  suite  is 
intended  to  be  played  by  a  large  body  of 
instruments  of  different  tone  coloring  and 
that  arrangements  for  pianoforte  of  orchestral 
works  usually  are  so  complex  that  even  great 

in 


THE  PIANOLIST 

pianists  find  difficulty  in  rendering  them 
effectively,  the  "  Peer  Gynt "  selections  are 
among  the  most  attractive  in  the  pianolist's 
repertory.  For,  through  the  instrument  on 
which  he  plays,  he  is  able  to  overcome  the 
most  complicated  chords  and  the  most  diffi- 
cult and  complex  runs,  as  easily  as  if  they 
were  music  of  the  simplest  kind.  If  the 
pianola  sometimes  is  called  mechanical,  the 
injustice  thus  done  it  is  due  to  its  super- 
human capacity  of  playing  with  perfect  ease 
things  that  are  wholly  beyond  the  fingers 
even  of  the  greatest  virtuosos,  yet  can  be 
rendered  fluently  and  also  expressively  by 
the  pianolist  who  has  genuine  feeling  for 
music. 

It  is  this  combination  of  technique  and 
expression  that  gives  to  Liszt's  enormously 
difficult  pianoforte  transcription  of  Saint- 
Saens'  symphonic  poem,  "  Danse  Maccabre," 
which  even  for  orchestra  is  an  extremely 
112 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

difficult  piece,  its  place  in  the  pianolist's 
repertory.  This  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing of  modern  compositions,  and  most  graph- 
ically descriptive  of  its  subject,  which  is  the 
"  Dance  of  Death,"  "  maccabre  "  being  de- 
rived from  the  Arabic  "  makabir,"  which 
signifies  a  place  of  burial.  Both  in  the 
literature  and  in  the  painting  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  Europe  and  particularly  in  church 
decoration,  figures  the  legend  that  once  a 
year  on  Hallowe'en  the  dead  arose  from 
their  graves  for  a  wild  and  hideous  dance, 
with  King  Death  himself  as  master  of  cere- 
monies. Saint-Saens'  symphonic  poem  real- 
istically describes  these  scenes,  and,  as  if  to 
attribute  the  inspiration  for  his  music  to  its 
precise  origin,  the  composer  has  placed 
above  his  score  a  poem  by  Henri  Cazalis. 
Mr.  Edward  Baxter  Perry  has  made  a  free 
transcription  of  this  poem,  which,  at  the 
same  time,  serves  capitally  as  a  description 
of  the  music: 


THE  PIANOLIST 

On  a  sounding  stone, 

With  a  blanched  thigh-bone, 

The  bone  of  a  saint,  I  fear, 

Death  strikes  the  hour 

Of  his  wizard  power, 

And  the  specters  haste  to  appear. 

From  their  tombs  they  rise 

In  sepulchral  guise, 

Obeying  the  summons  dread, 

And  gathering  round 

With  obeisance  profound, 

They  salute  the  King  of  the  Dead. 

Then  he  stands  in  the  middle 

And  tunes  up  his  fiddle, 

And  plays  them  a  gruesome  strain. 

And  each  gibbering  wight 

In  the  moon's  pale  light 

Must  dance  to  that  wild  refrain. 

Now  the  riddle  tells, 

As  the  music  swells, 

Of  the  charnal's  ghastly  pleasures; 

And  they  clatter  their  bones 

As  with  hideous  groans 

They  reel  to  those  maddening  measures. 


THRILL  OF  GREAT  MASTERS 

The  churchyard  quakes 

And  the  old  abbey  shakes 

To  the  tread  of  that  midnight  host, 

And  the  sod  turns  black 

On  each  circling  track, 

Where  a  skeleton  whirls  with  a  ghost. 

The  night  wind  moans 

In  shuddering  tones 

Through  the  gloom  of  the  cypress  tree, 

While  the  mad  rout  raves 

Over  yawning  graves 

And  the  fiddle  bow  leaps  with  glee. 

So  the  swift  hours  fly 
Till  the  reddening  sky 
Gives  warning  of  daylight  near. 
Then  the  first  cock  crow 
Sends  them  huddling  below 
To  sleep  for  another  year. 

The  composition  opens  weirdly  with  the 
hollow  strokes  of  the  hour.  There  is  a 
light,  staccato  passage  suggesting  the  spectres 
tiptoeing  from  their  graves  to  take  their 

"5 


THE  PIANOLIST 

places  in  the  fantastic  circle.  Then  comes 
one  of  the  most  strikingly  realistic  passages 
in  the  composition — Death  attempting  to 
tune  up  his  fiddle,  an  effect  that  is  repeated 
at  intervals  throughout  the  composition. 
After  reading  the  poem,  the  pianolist  will 
not  require  a  detailed  description  of  the 
work.  He  will  recognize  the  details  even 
to  the  moaning  of  the  night  wind  and  the 
crowing  of  the  cock,  the  scurry  of  the 
spectres  and  their  final  wail,  as  the  grave 
closes  upon  them  for  another  year. 


116 


V.        AN      "OPEN      SESAME"      TO 
CHOPIN 

THE  goal  of  all  pianists  is  Chopin.  As 
the  list  of  one  hundred  favorite  com- 
positions for  the  pianola  includes  no  less 
than  twenty-six  works  by  this  composer,  he 
would  seem  to  be  the  goal  of  the  pianolist 
as  well. 

Chopin  now  is  recognized  universally  as 
one  of  the  great  composers.  But  during  his 
lifetime  he  was  much  criticised,  called  mor- 
bid and  effeminate  and  a  composer  of  small 
ideas  because  he  wrote  almost  entirely  in 
the  smaller  forms.  As  if  size  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  beauty  of  a  work. 
In  every  art  the  best  work  of  each  great 
man  should  be  ranked  with  the  best  of  all 
other  great  men.  Some  geniuses  express 
themselves  on  a  larger,  but  not  necessarily 
on  a  greater  scale,  than  others.  In  poetry, 
for  example,  Poe's  "  Raven "  is  not  to  be 
ranked  below  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost "  be- 

117 


THE  PIANOLIST 

cause  shorter;  nor  in  music  need  a  Chopin 
ballad  be  placed  below  a  Beethoven  sym- 
phony because  not  so  extended  as  the  latter. 
Every  genius,  however,  must  expect  to  be 
condemned  until  Time  silences  criticism  of 
his  work.  For  ever  since  men  began  to 
create  rare  and  beautiful  things,  there  have 
been  other  men  who,  having  failed  therein, 
have  found  a  bitter  consolation  in  sitting  in 
crabbed  and  ill-tempered  judgment  upon 
their  successful  betters. 

Another  point  raised  against  Chopin  was, 
that  practically  he  confined  himself  to  com- 
posing for  pianoforte.  A  sufficient  answer 
to  this  is,  that  his  music  made  the  piano- 
forte what  it  is.  For  he  was  the  first  com- 
poser who  appreciated  the  genius  of  the 
instrument,  discovered  its  latent  tone  colors 
and  developed  its  resources  to  their  full 
capacity  for  artistic  beauty  and  expression. 
Chopin  was  the  first  to  make  the  pianoforte 
118 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

both  shimmer  and  sing.  Rubinstein  said 
that  the  art  of  music  could  go  no  further 
than  Chopin  and  called  him  the  pianoforte 
bard,  rhapsodist,  mind  and  soul.  "  How 
he  wrote  for  it  I  do  not  know,  but  only  an 
entire  passing  over  of  one  into  the  other 
could  call  such  music  into  life."  George 
Sand  (Mme.  Dudevant)  the  famous  French 
authoress  with  whom  Chopin  had  a  love 
affair  that  was  one  of  the  tragedies  of  his 
life,  said  that  "  he  made  the  instrument 
speak  the  language  of  the  infinite.  He  did 
not  need  the  great  material  methods  of  the 
orchestra  to  find  expression  for  his  genius. 
Neither  saxophone  nor  ophicleide  was  neces- 
sary for  him  to  fill  the  soul  with  awe.  With- 
out church  organ  or  human  voice  he  inspired 
faith  and  enthusiasm." 

Although  Chopin  figures  on  almost  every 
pianoforte  recital  program  the  average  ama- 
teur has  comparatively  slight  knowledge  of 
9  119 


THE  PIANOLIST 

the  range  of  his  genius.  Only  the  player 
able  to  go  over  his  works  in  person  can  ac- 
quire such  knowledge,  and  the  number  of 
amateurs  possessed  of  sufficient  technique  to 
play  Chopin's  music  is  very  small.  "  But 
to-day,"  writes  Mr.  Ashton  Johnson  in  his 
"  Hand-Book  to  Chopin's  Works,"  "  owing 
to  the  invention  of  the  pianola  and  the  fact 
that  all  Chopin's  works,  including  even  the 
least  important  of  the  posthumous  composi- 
tions, are  now  available  for  that  instrument, 
the  whole  domain  of  his  music  is,  for  the  first 
time,  open  to  all.  Those  who  wish  may 
pass  the  portal  hitherto  guarded  by  the 
dragon  of  technique  and  roam  at  will  in  his 
entrancing  music  land." 

Chopin  was  a  native  of  Poland.  He  was 
born  near  Warsaw  in  1810.  When  the 
Poles  lost  their  country  it  was  as  if  their 
grief  and  the  melancholy  of  their  exile  found 
expression  through  Chopin's  music.  He 
120 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

became  the  musical  poet  of  an  exiled  race. 
The  most  significant  years  of  his  life  he 
spent  in  Paris  surrounded  by  the  aristocracy 
of  his  own  country,  who  yet  had  no  country, 
and  by  the  aristocrats  of  art.  Liszt,  Heine, 
Meyerbeer,  Bellini  and  other  famous  men, 
as  well  as  famous  women,  were  his  personal 
friends. 

The  affair  with  George  Sand  left  on  his 
music  the  imprint  of  sorrow,  poignant  grief, 
and  a  pathos  reaching  down  into  the  depths 
of  tragedy.  Different  in  character  was  his 
idealization  of  the  beautiful  Countess  Del- 
phine  Potocka.  The  episode  is  fully  set 
forth  in  my  "  Loves  of  the  Great  Com- 
posers." One  of  Chopin's  favorite  musical 
amusements,  when  a  guest  in  the  house  of 
intimate  friends,  was  to  play  on  the  piano- 
forte "  musical  portraits "  of  the  company. 
One  evening  in  the  salon  of  Delphine's 
mother,  he  played  the  portraits  of  the  two 

121 


THE  PIANOLIST 

daughters  of  the  house.  When  it  came  to 
Delphine  he  gently  drew  her  light  shawl 
from  her  shoulders,  and  then  played  through 
it,  his  fingers,  with  every  tone  they  pro- 
duced, coming  in  touch  with  the  gossamer 
like  fabric,  still  warmed  and  hallowed  for 
him  from  its  contact  with  her.  It  was  Del- 
phine who  soothed  his  last  hours  by  singing 
for  him  as  he  lay  upon  his  death  bed. 

She  was  one  of  the  very  few  people  to 
whom  he  dedicated  more  than  one  of  his 
works.  Both  his  second  concerto  (in  F 
minor,  Op.  21)  and  his  most  familiar  waltz, 
the  Op.  64,  No.  i,  bear  her  name.  Chopin 
as  a  pianist,  showed  decided  preference  for 
the  slow  movement  of  the  concerto,  a  move- 
ment which  is  of  almost  ideal  perfection, 
"  now  radiant  with  light  and  anon  full  of 
tender  pathos,"  to  quote  from  Liszt.  It  is  in- 
deed, an  exquisite  idyll,  beautifully  melodious 
and  replete  with  delicate  ornamentation.  Be- 
122 


"  OPEN  SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

cause  of  its  beauty  and  its  association  with 
Delphine,  I  would  suggest  that  the  pianolist 
begin  with  this  larghetto.  There  is  another 
reason  for  the  suggestion.  In  its  ornamenta- 
tion it  illustrates  to  perfection  that  character- 
istic of  Chopin's  music  known  as  the  "  tempo 
rubato."  Much  of  Chopin's  music  has  in 
addition  to  inspired  melody,  an  iridescence 
as  if  produced  by  cascades  of  jewels.  These 
are  ornamental  notes  which  yet  are  not 
ornamental  in  the  limited  meaning  of  the 
word;  for  in  spite  of  all  their  light  and  shade 
and  their  play  of  changeable  colors,  they 
form  part  of  the  great  undercurrent  of 
melody.  There  are  various  technical  defini- 
tions of  tempo  rubato,  but  Liszt  described 
it  poetically  and  yet  exactly  when  he  said, 
"  You  see  that  tree?  Its  leaves  move  to  and 
fro  in  the  wind  and  follow  the  gentlest  mo- 
tion of  the  air;  but  its  trunk  stands  there 
immovable  in  its  form."  Or  the  effect  might 

123 


THE  PIANOLIST 

be  compared  with  the  myriad  shafts  from 
the  facets  of  a  jewel,  vibrating  brilliance  in 
all  directions,  while  the  jewel  itself  remains 
immovable,  the  center  of  its  own  rays. 
These  effects  readily  are  discoverable  in  the 
larghetto  of  the  Potocka  concerto. 

The  pianolist  should  then  take  up  the 
valses  of  Chopin  beginning  with  Op.  64, 
No.  i,  like  the  concerto,  dedicated  to  Del- 
phine.  This  is  the  most  familiar  of  all  the 
Chopin  waltzes,  so  familiar  that  it  frequently 
is  referred  to  in  a  derogatory  way  as  hack- 
neyed. Yet,  when  properly  played,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  effective  of  his  compositions 
in  this  genre.  Of  the  Chopin  waltzes  in 
general,  it  should  first  be  said  that  they  are 
not  dance-tunes  but  expressions,  alternately 
brilliant,  charming  and  sad,  of  the  intimacy 
of  the  ballroom,  and  that  they  possess  an 
innate  grace  which  no  other  composer  has 
been  able  to  impart  to  the  form.  They 
124 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

have  been  characterized  as  salon  music  of 
the  noblest  kind  and  were  well  described  by 
Schumann  when  he  said  that  if  they  were 
played  for  dances,  half  the  ladies  present 
should  be  countesses — which  exactly  hits  off 
the  distinguished  quality  of  these  valses.  To 
play  them  is  like  looking  at  a  dance  through 
a  fairy  lens;  they  seem  like  improvizations 
of  a  musician  during  a  dance  and  to  reflect 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  that  arise  as  he 
looks  on,  playing  the  waltz  rhythm  with 
the  left  hand,  while  the  melody  and  the  orna- 
mental note  groups  indicate  his  fancy — love, 
a  jealous  plaint,  joy,  ecstacy  and  the  tender 
whisperings  of  enamored  couples  as  they 
glide  past. 

"  Gliding  "  is  the  word  that  has  been  ap- 
plied to  the  smooth  brilliance  of  the  Potocka 
valse.  There  runs  a  story  regarding  this 
composition  that  George  Sand  had  a  little 
dog  that  used  to  chase  its  own  tail  around 

125 


THE  PIANOLIST 

in  a  circle,  and  that  one  evening,  she  said  to 
Chopin,  "  If  I  had  your  talent,  I  would  im- 
provise a  valse  for  that  dog,"  whereupon  the 
composer  promptly  seated  himself  at  the 
pianoforte  and  dashed  off  this  fascinating 
little  improvisation.  It  is  Parisian  in  its 
grace  and  coquetry  and  ends  with  a  rapid 
run,  the  last  note  of  which  is  like  the 
rhythmic  tap  of  the  foot  with  which  a 
dainty  ballet  dancer  might  conclude  a  lightly 
executed  pas. 

In  striking  contrast  to  this  is  the  "  Valse," 
Op.  34,  No.  2.  This  is  in  a  minor  key  and 
instead  of  representing  the  abandon  of  the 
dance,  it  seems  rather  to  depict  a  melan- 
choly lover  allowing  his  eyes  to  travel 
slowly  around  the  ballroom  in  a  futile  search 
of  his  heart's  desire.  The  prevailing  tone 
of  the  composition  rather  is  that  of  an  elegy 
—the  burial  of  fond  hopes.  Stephen  Heller, 
pianist  and  composer,  tells  of  meeting 
126 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

Chopin  in  the  store  of  a  Paris  music  pub- 
lisher. Heller  had  come  in  to  order  all 
the  valses.  Thereupon  Chopin  asked  him 
which  he  liked  best,  and  when  Heller  men- 
tioned this  sad  one  in  slow  time,  Chopin 
exclaimed,  "  I  am  glad  you  like  that  one, 
for  it  also  is  my  favorite,"  and  he  invited 
Heller  to  have  luncheon  with  him. 

Perhaps  the  most  brilliant  and  extended 
of  the  valses  is  Op.  42.  In  this  Chopin  im- 
poses upon  the  triple  waltz  time,  a  melody 
that  is  in  double  time — that  is,  while  you 
count  "  one,  two,  three  "  for  the  accompani- 
ment, "  one,  two  "  will  suffice  for  the  melody 
above  it.  The  effect  of  this  device  has  been 
described  as  indicative  in  this  waltz  of  the 
loving,  nestling  and  tender  embracing  of 
the  dancing  couples.  It  is  followed  in  the 
music  by  sweeping  motions  free  and  grace- 
ful like  those  of  birds.  The  prolonged  trill 
with  which  the  piece  begins,  seems  to  sum- 

127 


THE  PIANOLIST 

mon  the  dancers  to  the  ballroom,  while  the 
waltz  itself,  is  an  intermingling  of  coquetry, 
hesitation  and  avowal,  with  a  closing  passage 
that  is  like  an  echo  of  the  evening's  events. 

These  three  waltzes,  if  played  in  the  order 
in  which  I  have  mentioned  them,  make  a 
capital  valse  suite,  and  another  could  be 
made  by  taking  in  the  following  order,  the 
dashing  "  Posthumous  Waltz  "  in  E  minor, 
the  C  minor,  Op.  64,  No.  2,  with  its  veiled, 
sad  beauty;  and  the  brilliant  Op.  34,  No.  i. 

In  his  "  Nocturnes "  those  sombre  poems 
of  night,  Chopin  seems  weaving  his  own 
shroud.  But  if,  like  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son, Chopin  loved  the  darkness  and  its  mel- 
ancholy murmuring,  and  if  there  was  a  touch 
of  morbidness  in  his  nature,  yet,  like  Steven- 
son, he  had  in  him  a  strain  of  chivalry. 
Mr.  Huneker,  therefore,  in  his  book  on 
Chopin,  is  quite  right  when  he  says  of  the 
nocturnes  that  if  they  were  played  with 
128 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

more  vigor,  a  quickening  of  the  time  pulse 
and  a  less  languishing  touch,  they  would  be 
rescued  from  a  surplus  of  lush  sentiment. 

Undoubtedly,  the  most  popular  of  the  noc- 
turnes is  the  one  in  E  flat,  Op.  9,  No.  2. 
In  fact  it  is  so  popular  that  when  any  one  is 
asked  to  play  "  Chopin's  Nocturne,"  this  one 
is  meant.  Because  it  is  popular,  it  is  sneered 
at  by  some  critics,  but  it  possesses  a  lyric 
beauty  quite  its  own  and  "  sometimes  sur- 
prises even  the  weary  teacher  with  a  waft 
of  unexpected  freshness,  like  the  fleeting 
odor  from  an  old  and  much  used  school 
book  in  which  violets  have  been  pressed." 
A  sustained  love  song,  it  ends  with  a  cadence 
that  should  be  played  with  a  rippling 
delicacy  suggestive  of  moonlight  on  a  lake 
in  the  garden  of  an  old  chateau. 

There  are  nocturnes  of  Chopin's  composed 
on  a  larger  scale  than  the  Opus  37,  No.  2, 
but  to  my  taste  there  is  none  more  beautiful. 

129 


THE  PIANOLIST 

It  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  a  passage 
in  George  Sand's  diary  describing  a  voyage 
with  Chopin  to  the  island  of  Majorca. 
"  The  night  was  warm  and  dark,  illumined 
only  by  an  extraordinary  phosphorescence 
in  the  wake  of  the  ship;  everybody  was 
asleep  oh  board  except  the  steersman,  who, 
in  order  to  keep  himself  awake,  sang  all 
night,  but  in  a  voice  so  soft  and  so  subdued 
that  one  might  have  thought  he  feared  to 
arouse  the  men  of  the  watch.  We  did  not 
weary  of  listening  to  him,  for  his  singing 
was  of  the  strangest  kind.  He  observed  a 
rhythm  and  modulation  totally  different 
from  those  we  are  accustomed  to,  arid 
seemed  to  allow  his  voice  to  go  at  random, 
like  the  smoke  of  the  vessel  carried  away 
and  swayed  by  the  breeze.  It  was  a 
reverie  rather  than  a  song,  a  kind  of  care- 
less floating  of  the  voice,  with  which  the 
mind  had  little  to  do,  but  which  kept  time 
130 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

with  the  swaying  of  the  ship  and  the  faint 
lapping  of  the  dark  water,  and  resembled  a 
vague  improvization  restrained,  neverthe- 
less, by  sweet  and  monotonous  forms." 

How  suggestive  this  is  of  the  nocturne! 
The  undulating  accompaniment,  the  scintil- 
lation of  the  treble,  suggests  the  gliding, 
gently  rocking  motion  of  the  vessel  and  the 
phosphorescence  in  its  wake;  while  the  sec- 
ond theme  of  the  nocturne  would,  even 
without  any  suggestion  from  the  passage  in 
George  Sand's  diary,  be  taken  for  a  bar- 
carolle, a  reverie  sung  at  night,  now  rising, 
now  dying  away,  but  with  the  pulse  of  a 
musical  poet  throbbing  through  every  note — 
the  most  beautiful  melody,  I  think,  Chopin 
ever  wrote. 

And  speaking  of  this  melody  as  an  im- 
provization, reminds  me  of  those  other  im- 
provizations  by  Chopin,  the  "  Impromptus," 
in  which  he  has  displayed  his  genius  as 


THE  PIANOLIST 

convincingly  as  in  any  of  his  other  works. 
They  are  fresh  and  untrammeled  in  their 
development,  and  as  full  of  sunlight  as  the 
nocturnes  are  of  darkness.  The  .one  in  A 
flat  major  was  dedicated  to  the  Countess 
de  Loban  as  a  wedding  present,  and  was  a 
farewell  to  her  as  a  pupil.  Brilliant,  joyous 
and  iridescent  in  its  opening  and  closing  sec- 
tions, that  in  the  middle  voices  vague  and 
tender  regret.  The  composition  sometimes 
is  spoken  of  as  the  "  Trilby "  impromptu. 
It  is  the  one  Du  Maurier  made  Trilby  sing 
under  the  hypnotic  influence  of  Svengali. 

Had  Chopin's  directions  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  certain  of  his  manuscripts  after  his 
death  been  carried  out,  the  world  would  be 
the  poorer  by  the  loss  of  his  "  Fantaisie  Im- 
promptu," published  as  Op.  66.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  why  he  should  have 
wanted  this  work  destroyed,  since  it  produces 
a  sinuous,  interwoven,  flowing  effect,  inter- 
132 


"OPEN   SESAME"  TO  CHOPIN 

rupted  by  a  middle  melody  of  much  senti- 
ment and  beauty.  It  has  been  very  well 
described  by  Mr.  Perry  in  a  brief  poem  en- 
titled "The  Fantaisie  Impromptu": 

The  sigh  of  June  through  the  swaying  trees, 
The  scent  of  the  rose,  new  blown,  on  the  breeze, 
The  sound  of  waves  on  a  distant  strand, 
The  shadows  falling  on  sea  and  land; 

All  these  are  found 

In  this  stream  of  sound, 
This  murmuring,  mystical,  minor  strain. 

And  stars  that  glimmer  in  misty  skies, 
Like  tears  that  shimmer  in  sorrowing  eyes, 
And  the  throb  of  a  heart  that  beats  in  tune 
With  tender  regrets  of  a  happier  June, 

When  life  was  new 

And  love  was  true, 
And  the  soul  was  a  stranger  to  sorrow  and  pain. 

A  reading  of  this  poem  conveys  to  the 
player  the  correct  mood  in  which  to  inter- 
pret the  impromptu. 

133 


THE  PIANOLIST 

By  way  of  contrast  I  follow  these  careless 
raptures — careless  only  in  their  effect  of 
spontaneity — with  the  famous  "  Marche 
Funebre,"  the  funeral  march  which  forms 
the  third  movement  of  Chopin's  sonata  in 
B  flat  minor,  Op.  35.  This  has  been  called 
the  best  funeral  march  ever  written  for  the 
pianoforte.  At  Chopin's  own  funeral  it  was 
played  scored  for  orchestra.  In  my  opinion 
it  is  not  only  "  the  best  funeral  march  ever 
written  for  the  pianoforte,"  but  the  most 
intrinsically  beautiful  and  sad  funeral  march 
ever  composed.  Its  opening  suggests  the 
solemn  tolling  of  great  bells,  the  heavy 
march  rhythm  gives  the  effect  of  the  slow 
procession  of  mourners;  and  the  dirgelike 
music,  soft  and  muffled  at  first,  grows  in 
power  like  the  measured,  inflexible  rhythm 
of  fate.  Then  it  seems  as  if  the  mourners 
had  arrived  at  the  open  grave,  for  the  music 
voices  a  weeping  melody,  pure  and  tender 

134 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

and  sweet;  then  the  march  rhythm  makes 
itself  heard  again  and  the  procession  leaves 
the  grave,  the  music  dying  away  in  the  dis- 
tance. This  is  the  funeral  march  of  a  na- 
tion, of  Chopin's  own  beloved  Poland. 

Chopin  wrote  two  sets  of  twelve  "  Etudes." 
They  gave  an  entirely  new  significance  to 
the  term.  For  the  Chopin  etudes  not  only 
are  supreme  as  studies.  They  are  supreme 
as  music  as  well.  Before  they  were  pub- 
lished the  usual  musical  study  was  something 
very  dry  and  set.  How  different  these 
superb  compositions  are  from  studies  such 
as  are  comprised  in  Czerny's  "  School  of 
Velocity,"  which  make  you  feel  like  em- 
ploying the  "  velocity "  you  have  acquired 
to  run  away  as  quickly  as  possible  from  the 
"  school,"  whereas  the  Chopin  etudes  are  so 
full  of  melody  and  of  the  rarest  and  the 
most  beautiful  musical  effects,  that  to  play 
any  one  of  them  suffices  to  whet  the  appetite 

i°  135 


THE  PIANOLIST 

for  the  others.  The  pianolist  might  well 
go  through  the  entire  two  sets  of  twelve. 
It  would  open  up  a  new  musical  world  to 
him.  Here  I  can  only  point  out  three. 
Opus  10,  No.  5,  is  the  "  Black  Key  "  etude, 
so  called  because  all  the  notes  of  the  right 
hand  are  on  black  keys.  This  is  a  brilliant 
study  with  a  very  charming  ending.  Opus 
25,  No.  9,  is  the  so  called  "  Butterfly  Wings  " 
etude,  a  designation  which  expresses  its  gen- 
eral characteristic  of  lightness  and  grace, 
but  fails  to  make  allowance  for  the  accent 
of  passion  in  the  rising  and  descending  pas- 
sage that  occurs  about  the  middle  and  which 
should  be  brought  out  when  it  is  correctly 
interpreted — which  usually  it  is  not.  The 
greatest  of  all  the  etudes  is  the  "  Revolu- 
tionary," Op.  10,  No.  12.  It  was  written  by 
Chopin  in  1831,  when  he  heard  the  news 
that  Warsaw  had  been  taken  by  the  Russians, 
and  it  expresses  the  tornado  of  emotion  that 
136 


"  OPEN  SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

swept  over  him  when  he  realized  that  Po- 
land was  about  to  sink  beneath  the  triple 
onslaught  of  Russia,  Austria  and  Germany. 
This  composition  which,  mind  you,  goes  by 
the  simple  name  of  "  study,"  is  one  of  the 
most  tremendous  outbursts  of  wrath  in  music 
— a  storm  of  the  soul  without  even  such 
lyric  episodes  as  those  which  form  islands 
of  calm  in  the  torrential  last  movement  of 
Beethoven's  "  Moonlight  Sonata."  Well 
may  Mr.  Huneker  say  that  the  end  "  rings 
out  like  the  crack  of  creation.  It  is  ele- 
mental." 

This  etude,  certain  of  the  "  Polonaises," 
the  "  Scherzos,"  the  "  Ballades "  and  the 
"  Fantaisie  "  in  F  minor,  reveal  a  fire,  pas- 
sion and  virile  power  that  will  surprise  those 
who  have  formed  their  estimate  of  Chopin 
from  the  mournful  nocturnes  and  brilliant 
waltzes.  The  so-called  "  Military  Polon- 
aise," Op.  40,  No.  i,  is  so  replete  with  the 

137 


THE  PIANOLIST 

spirit  of  war  that  in  the  middle  portion  it 
is  easy  to  hear  the  roll  of  drums  and  the 
clash  of  battle.  It  was  of  this  polonaise 
Chopin  said,  "  If  I  had  the  strength  to  play 
it  as  it  should  be  played  I  would  break  all 
the  strings  of  the  pianoforte." 

The  most  effective  of  the  polonaises,  his 
opus  53,  also  breathes  forth  martial  ardor 
and  defiance.  It  begins  with  a  stirring  call 
to  arms,  followed  by  the  swinging  measure 
of  the  polonaise  proper  with  a  melody  that 
suggests  soldiery  on  prancing  steeds  and  with 
flashing  sabres,  defiling  in  review  before 
battle.  This  is  followed  by  a  "  trio "  in 
which  a  rapid  octave  figure  in  the  bass,  be- 
ginning softly  and  growing  louder  and 
louder  until  it  reaches  a  crashing  climax, 
„•  with  strains  like  a  bugle  call  ringing  out 
above  it,  depicts  a  cavalry  charge  coming 
from  the  distance,  drawing  nearer  and  nearer 
and  sweeping  past  with  a  mighty  roar. 

138 


"  OPEN   SESAME  "  TO  CHOPIN 

There  is  a  story  that  while  Chopin  was  com- 
posing this  polonaise,  he  was  so  affected 
when  playing  over  the  nearly  completed 
work,  that,  seized  by  a  peculiar  hallucina- 
tion, he  saw  the  walls  of  the  room  open  and, 
approaching  from  the  outer  night,  a  band 
of  medieval  Polish  knights  mounted  and  in 
armor,  as  if  they  had  risen  from  their  ancient 
graves  and  ridden  on  the  clouds  to  appear 
in  response  to  the  summons  of  his  music. 
The  somewhat  vague  passage  which  follows 
the  climax  of  the  cavalry  charge  and  leads 
back  to  the  main  subject  possibly  may  be 
accounted  for  by  this  strange  experience. 

Unfortunately  there  is  no  opportunity  here 
to  take  up  the  "  Scherzos,"  so  unlike  the 
coquettish,  bantering  pieces  of  the  same  name 
by  other  composers,  Chopin  seemingly  rep- 
resenting tragedy  mocking  itself,  as  any  one 
playing  the  B  flat  minor  "  Scherzo,"  Op.  31, 
may  hear  for  himself;  the  "Ballades,"  so 

139 


THE  PIANOLIST 

eloquently  narrative  of  love  and  adventure, 
the  A  flat  major  and  the  G  minor  being 
especially  popular  in  the  pianolist's  reper- 
tory; and  the  "  Fantaisie,"  in  F  minor,  one 
of  the  greatest  compositions  for  pianoforte. 
As  for  the  "  Mazurkas "  and  "  Preludes," 
pieces  that  are  among  their  composer's  hap- 
piest creations,  I  can  do  no  more  than  call 
the  pianolist's  attention  to  their  existence 
and  advise  him  not  to  neglect  them. 


140 


VI.  NOTES  ON  SOME  OTHER 
MASTERS 

"[BESIDES  those  composers,  one  or  more 
U  of  whose  works  I  have  described  in 
some  detail,  there  are  others  who  at  least 
should  be  touched  on,  always  bearing  in 
mind,  however,  that  one  of  the  aims  of  this 
book  is  to  stimulate  the  pianolist  to  explore 
for  himself.  Bach,  Handel,  Haydn  and 
Mozart  can  be  studied  most  profitably  in 
connection  with  the  courses  that  are  referred 
to  in  the  chapter  on  Educational  Factors 
which  follows.  There  too  will  be  found 
reference  to  the  thorough  courses  on  Wagner, 
one  a  general  course  on  that  composer,  the 
other  a  special  course  on  his  "  Ring  of  the 
Nibelung." 

A  line  of  composers  that  may  well  inter- 
est the  pianolist  has  come  to  the  front  in 
Russia.  Rubinstein,  whose  "  Melody "  in 
F  and  "  Kammenoi,  Ostrow,"  No.  17,  are 
among  the  popular  selections  in  the  piano- 

141 


THE  PIANOLIST 

list's  repertory  was  a  Russian,  who,  how- 
ever, from  a  musical  standpoint,  expressed 
himself  in  German.  To  a  certain  extent 
the  same  is  true  of  Tschaikowsky.  His 
music  is  "  universal "  rather  than  national. 
It  has,  nevertheless,  the  Russian  tang  to  a 
greater  degree  than  Rubinstein's,  and  Tschai- 
kowsky is  classed  correctly  as  the  head  of 
the  Russian  school  and  one  of  the  greatest 
of  modern  composers.  His  "  Pathetic  Sym- 
phony," which  has  been  metrostyled  by 
Edouard  Colonne,  a  distinguished  French 
orchestral  conductor,  is  a  noble  work. 
Among  smaller  pieces  which  the  pianolist 
readily  will  appreciate,  are  the  "  Song  with- 
out Words,"  Op.  2,  No.  2;  an  attractive 
"  Valse  a  cinq  Temps,"  with  its  oddly  ex- 
tended rhythm ;  the  very  characteristic  "  No- 
vember, in  the  Troika,"  Op.  37,  No.  1 1 ;  an 
expressive  "  Barcarolle  "  and  the  selections 
from  his  "  Casse  Noisette "  (Nutcracker) 
ballet  suite. 
142 


OTHER  COMPOSERS 

Next  to  Tschaikowsky's  "  Song  without 
Words "  the  most  widely  known  short  piece 
for  pianoforte  by  a  Russian  composer  is 
Rachmaninoff's  "  Prelude,"  Op.  3,  No.  2, 
a  broad  and  sonorous  work  with  a  splendid 
climax.  A  little  "Waltz,"  Op.  10,  No.  2, 
is  captivating;  and  a  "  Serenade,"  Op.  3, 
No.  5,  has  an  originality  and  charm  quite 
its  own.  A  very  beautiful  "  Moment  Mus- 
ical," Op.  1 6,  No.  5,  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  included  as  yet  in  the  catalogue  of 
music  rolls,  an  honor  to  which  it  clearly  is 
entitled.  Arensky,  Balakirew,  Cesar  Cui, 
Glazounow,  Karganoff,  Liapounow,  Rimsky- 
Korsakow,  Sapellnikoff  and  Taneiew  are 
other  interesting  figures  of  the  "  New-Rus- 
sian "  school  of  which  so  much  is  heard  at 
present. 

Dvorak  who  was  a  Bohemian  wrote  much 
music  distinctly  and  fascinatingly  character- 
istic of  his  native  land.  He  was,  however, 

H3 


THE  PIANOLIST 

broad  enough  in  his  tastes  to  recognize,  dur- 
ing his  sojourn  of  three  years  in  America, 
the  beauty  of  the  Negro  plantation  melodies 
and  to  compose  upon  several  of  these  as 
themes,  his  symphony  "  From  the  New 
World,"  sometimes  called  more  briefly  the 
"American  Symphony."  This  symphony, 
two  works  of  chamber  music,  also  composed 
during  his  residence  in  America,  and  his 
compositions  in  his  native  Bohemian  musical 
idiom  usually  are  ranked  higher  than  his 
more  cosmopolitan  efforts.  His  "  Hu- 
moreske,"  Op.  101,  No.  5,  the  "  Slavic 
Dances "  and  "  On  the  Holy  Mount "  are 
among  his  compositions  unmistakably  Bo- 
hemian in  origin. 

While  Saint-Saens,  having  worked  more 
successfully  in  the  larger  orchestral  forms, 
is  ranked  first  among  contemporary  French 
composers,  and  Chaminade  leads  as  a  com- 
poser of  clever  salon  music,  the  pianolist 
144 


OTHER  COMPOSERS 

can  add  some  attractive  pieces  to  his  reper- 
tory from  the  compositions  of  Delibes  and 
Godard.  Delibes  is  the  composer  of  the 
opera  "  Lakme,"  and  the  Airs  de  Ballet  from 
this,  as  well  as  the  selections  from  his  "  Cop- 
pelia  "  and  "  Sylvia  "  ballets,  will  be  found 
spontaneous  and  original.  In  fact  in  all 
instances  in  which  music  composed  in  dance 
forms  has  survived,  this  will  be  found  due 
to  a  decided  strain  of  individuality  and  re- 
sulting originality  in  the  composer.  The 
Valse  Lente  from  the  "  Coppelia  "  ballet  is 
among  the  hundred  most  popular  pieces  in 
the  pianolist's  repertory;  and  well  up  in 
the  same  list  is  Godard's  graceful  "  Second 
Mazurka,"  Op.  54. 

Among  the  most  distinguished  modern 
composers  is  the  American,  Edward  Alex- 
ander MacDowell.  He  is  living,  but  his 
work  is  over;  for,  unfortunately,  his  mind 
has  given  way.  His  "  Scotch  Poem  "  with 


THE  PIANOLIST 

its  graphic  musical  representation  of  the  sea 
beating  against  a  rockbound  coast  and  its 
lyric  episode  consisting  of  a  trist  Scotch 
ballad,  is  highly  dramatic,  while  his  "  Sea 
Pieces "  are  among  the  most  poetic  of  con- 
temporary compositions  for  pianoforte.  His 
"  Witches'  Dance "  is  highly  descriptive, 
and  in  whatever  direction  the  pianolist  may 
familiarize  himself  with  the  music  of  Mac- 
Powell,  he  will  be  found  a  highly  original, 
eloquent  and  expressive  composer,  whose 
fame,  already  established,  is  bound  to  grow 
with  the  lapse  of  time. 

This  chapter  may  fittingly  be  concluded 
with  a  brief  reference  to  two  great  Ger- 
man composers,  Schumann  and  Brahms. 
Although  "  popular "  is  not  a  word  ordi- 
narily associated  with  Schumann,  two  of  his 
shorter  pieces,  "Traumerei"  (Revery)  and 
"  Warum "  (Why)  are  great  favorites. 
Schumann  did  much  for  the  development  of 
146 


OTHER  COMPOSERS 

music  that  has  a  distinct  meaning  and  his 
works  frequently  bear  titles  that  are  sug- 
gestive of  some  mood  or  scene,  like  "At 
Evening,"  "Soaring"  (Aufschwung,  some- 
times translated  as  Excelsior) ,  "  Carnaval," 
a  series  of  twenty-one  pieces  descriptive  of 
carnival  scenes ;  and  the  "  Novelettes." 

Brahms  is  far  more  of  a  melodist  than 
his  critics  give  him  credit  for,  but  his  clear- 
ness of  expression  is  interfered  with  by  the 
relentless  scientific  accuracy  with  which  he 
works  out  his  ideas,  to  which  method  he  is 
apt  to  sacrifice  only  too  often  the  innate 
beauty  of  his  thoughts.  He  seems,  how- 
ever, to  be  slowly  gaining  ground,  but  more 
through  his  songs  than  through  his  instru- 
mental works  excepting  those  of  chamber 
music.  Yet  any  one  who  will  seriously 
study  Brahms  and  begin  with  the  shorter 
pianoforte  pieces,  Op.  76  and  Op.  116-119, 
will  find  mines  of  purest  musical  gold, 

H7 


THE  PIANOLIST 

where,  perhaps,  he  least  expected  to  dis- 
cover them.  Entirely  different  in  style  from 
Brahms'  other  works  are  his  "  Hungarian 
Dances,"  in  which  he  has  taken  dance  themes 
of  the  Hungarian  Gypsies  and  skillfully 
worked  them  up  into  pieces  that  are  melod- 
iously and  rhythmically  fascinating  and  un- 
reservedly popular.  They  are  much  played 
by  pianolists. 

Let  me  point  out  again,  here,  that,  how- 
ever unsystematic  the  arrangement  of  this 
book  may  seem  to  the  musical  pedant,  I 
have  followed  a  certain  sequence — one  of 
my  own  devising  and  which  seemed  to  me 
best  adapted  to  give  the  pianolist  a  bowing 
acquaintance  with  some  of  the  great  com- 
posers that  would  lead  him  to  wish  for  a 
closer  intimacy  with  these  and  others.  What 
I  have  kept  in  mind,  and  very  clearly,  is 
the  fact  that  I  am  dealing  with  a  player 
for  whom  all  technical  difficulties  have  been 
148 


THE  PIANOLIST 

eliminated  by  the  very  instrument  on  which 
he  plays.  The  complete  control  it  gives 
him  of  all  technical  resources  is  what  makes 
the  old  method  of  analyzing  pieces  accord- 
ing to  their  historical  sequence  not  only  un- 
necesary  but  futile  in  a  book  of  this  kind. 
Nevertheless,  so  perfectly  does  this  instru- 
ment adapt  itself  to  all  music,  that  any  one 
who  desires  to  trace  up  the  technical  evolu- 
tion of  the  art  from  Bach  to  the  present  day, 
will  find  it  the  readiest  means  for  accom- 
plishing his  purpose,  especially  if  he  uses  in 
conjunction  with  it  the  educational  courses 
referred  to  in  the  next  chapter. 


149 


VII.      EDUCATIONAL    FACTORS. 

TT  is  not  overstating  the  case  to  say  that 
••-  the  pianola  is  the  first  practical  means 
ever  devised  in  history  through  which 
people  in  general,  whether  they  have  had 
previous  instruction  in  music  or  not,  can 
become  familiar  with  the  world's  best  mus- 
ical compositions.  Not  only  can  they  fa- 
miliarize themselves  with  the  past,  they  are 
able  to  keep  up  with  the  present.  For  ex- 
ample, many  of  Richard  Strauss's  works, 
including  selections  from  "  Salome,"  are  to 
be  found  on  the  rolls  prepared  for  this 
modern  instrument.  In  fact  every  new  com- 
poser whose  work  has  any  significance  is 
represented  in  the  catalogue  of  music  rolls. 
Supposing  a  pianolist  is  planning  to  attend 
an  opera  or  a  concert.  It  would  have  to 
be  a  very  peculiar  opera  or  a  very  peculiar 
concert  program  which  he  could  not  obtain 
and  try  over  beforehand.  Needless  to  say 
that,  by  trying  it  over  beforehand,  his  ap- 
150 


EDUCATIONAL  FACTORS 

preciation  of  the  performance  would  be  in- 
creased a  thousandfold. 

Singers  who  cannot  accompany  themselves 
on  the  pianoforte,  will  find  this  new  instru- 
ment a  boon.  For  there  is  a  special  list  of 
accompaniments  in  which  the  principal 
works  in  the  vocalist's  repertory  are  repre- 
sented. Lovers  of  chamber  music  in  which 
the  pianoforte  figures,  will  find  pieces  like 
sonatas  for  pianoforte  and  violin  or  violon- 
cello, trios  for  pianoforte,  violin  and  violon- 
cello, pianoforte  quartets,  quintets  and  sim- 
ilar works,  arranged  so  that  the  pianolist 
can  play  the  pianoforte  part.  "  This  is  the 
first  time  I  ever  have  heard  every  note  of 
the  pianoforte  part  of  the  Schumann  quintet," 
said  the  first  violinist  of  a  well  known  string 
quartet  to  Mr.  E.  R.  Hunter,  a  professional 
pianolist,  after  a  performance  of  this  fam- 
ous work  with  Mr.  Hunter  at  the  pianola. 

The  importance  of  the  educational  value 


11 


THE  PIANOLIST 

of  this  new  instrument  is  recognized  by 
many  of  the  leading  educators  in  music. 
Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  the  University  of 
California,  the  University  of  Michigan,  Vas- 
sar  and  many  other  institutions  of  learning 
use  the  instrument  in  connection  with  their 
musical  courses.  At  Harvard,  in  connection 
with  the  lectures  on  music,  the  students  are 
not  only  allowed  but  encouraged  to  go  in 
groups  of  six  or  eight  to  the  hall  in  which 
the  instruments  are  installed,  and  play  for 
themselves  the  symphonies  of  Beethoven,  the 
music  dramas  of  Wagner  and  other  music 
that  has  formed  the  subjects  of  the  lectures. 
"As  a  self-educator,"  writes  Henry  T. 
Finck,  "  this  instrument  is  worth  more  than 
all  other  instruments  combined,  for  the  rea- 
son that  any  one  can,  without  practice,  play 
on  it  any  piece  ever  written." 

Under  the  editorship  of  Carroll  Brent 
Chilton,  assisted  by  a  staff  of  musicians  and 
152 


EDUCATIONAL  FACTORS 

writers  on  music,  among  them  Paul  Morgan 
and  Edward  Ziegler,  thorough  educational 
courses  for  pianolists  have  been  devised. 
The  courses  collectively  are  known  as  "  The 
New  Musical  Education,"  and  are  conducted 
in  connection  with  the  Music-Lovers  Library 
of  music  rolls.  These  courses  are  admirably 
arranged.  There  is  a  "  Popular  Course  on 
the  Great  Composers  "  with  a  supplementary 
one  on  the  "  Modern  Great  Composers." 
The  former  is  divided  into  five  lessons: 
Bach  and  Handel;  Haydn  and  Mozart; 
Beethoven  and  Schubert;  Schumann  and 
Mendelssohn;  and  Chopin  and  Wagner. 
The  course  on  the  modern  great  composers 
also  is  divided  into  five  lessons:  Liszt  and 
Wagner;  Chopin  and  Brahms;  Tschaikowsky, 
Dvorak  and  Paderewski;  Saint-Saens,  Mos- 
kowszki  and  Chaminade;  and  Grieg  and 
MacDowell,  the  last  named  the  most  dis- 
tinguished among  American  composers. 

153 


THE  PIANOLIST 

Care  has  been  taken  in  arranging  these 
two  courses  not  to  aim  above  the  head  of 
the  musical  novice.  For  example,  in  deal- 
ing with  Bach  and  Handel,  two  of  their 
lighter  pieces  are  taken  up  and  analyzed. 
Biographical  data  are  given  and,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  pieces  that  are  analyzed,  supple- 
mentary rolls  of  seven  compositions  by  Bach 
and  five  compositions  by  Handel  are  given, 
together  with  lists  of  reference  books.  The 
other  lessons  in  these  two  courses  are  planned 
in  the  same  popular  style.  They  give  the 
pianolist  a  bird's-eye-view  of  music  and  its 
development  from  Bach  to  Wagner. 

The  "  New  Musical  Education "  also 
takes  up  the  great  composers  separately  and 
gives  most  thorough-going  courses  on  them. 
The  Beethoven  course,  for  example,  is  ar- 
ranged in  twelve  lessons.  The  course  fur- 
nishes the  student  with  the  Beethoven  biog- 
raphy by  Crowest;  with  twelve  "lesson 

154 


EDUCATIONAL  FACTORS 

pamphlets,"  each  pamphlet  relating  to  a 
division  of  the  course  and  written  by  Thomas 
Whitney  Surette;  with  twelve  scores,  orches- 
tral and  pianoforte ;  and  sixty-two  "  educa- 
tional "  music  rolls.  The  scores  correspond 
with  the  twelve  works  discussed  in  the  twelve 
lessons,  each  lesson  being  devoted  to  the 
analysis  of  one  composition.  The  rolls  in- 
clude not  only  those  which  give  the  works 
complete,  but  also  special  rolls  with  music 
quotations  illustrating  the  points  made  in 
the  lesson  pamphlets.  The  various  musical 
forms  employed  by  Beethoven  are  explained 
and  analyzed,  and  in  the  complete  rolls  the 
different  sections  characteristic  of  each  form 
are  clearly  indicated  in  print,  so  that  the 
student,  having  read  the  analysis,  can  follow 
it  intelligently  on  the  roll.  There  are  many 
other  practical  details  of  this  kind  in  all  the 
courses  and  which  go  to  enhance  their  value 
to  the  pianolist-student. 

155 


THE  PIANOLIST 

There  are  two  splendid  Wagner  courses 
to  which  I  direct  special  attention  because 
of  the  frequent  performances  of  his  works 
in  opera  and  concert,  and  because  a  compre- 
hensive knowledge  of  the  development  of 
his  theories  adds  so  greatly  to  the  enjoyment 
of  his  music.  The  first  course  begins  with 
his  early  opera  "  Rienzi "  and  ends  with 
"  Parsifal."  All  his  works  for  the  stage  are 
embraced  in  this  course  which  consists  of 
ten  lessons,  each  lesson  having,  in  addition 
to  the  ordinary  rolls,  a  "  quotation  roll," 
illustrating  the  points  in  the  lesson  pamph- 
lets, and  in  the  case  of  the  music-dramas, 
giving  the  "  leading  motives,"  so  that  the 
student  can  familiarize  himself  with  these, 
and  with  their  significance  in  the  drama, 
and  readily  recognize  them  when  he  hears 
them,  while  playing  the  complete  rolls  or 
at  a  performance. 

The  second  Wagner  course  relates  to  the 


EDUCATIONAL  FACTORS 

"  Ring  of  the  Nibelung."      It  takes  up  con- 
secutively  the   four   great   divisions   of   the 
work,  "  Rhinegold,"  "  The  Valkyr,"  "  Sieg- 
fried "  and  "  Dusk  of  the  Gods,"  devoting 
a  lesson  to  each.      Each  lesson  contains  a 
quotation   roll   of   leading  motives   and   the 
following  examples  from  the  scores : — Lesson 
I.,  "  Rhinegold."     Prelude  and  scene  of  the 
Rhine-Maidens,   Loge's  Narrative,   and  the 
finale    of    the    work.       Lesson    II.,    "  The 
Valkyr."      Siegmund's  Love  Song,  Ride  of 
the  Valkyries,   and   the   Magic   Fire   Spell. 
Lesson    III.,    "  Siegfried."       Forge    Song, 
Siegfried  and  the  Forest  Bird,  Siegfried  and 
Briinnhilde.       Lesson    IV.,    "  Dusk   of    the 
Gods."       Siegfried's    Rhine   Journey,    Song 
of  the  Rhine-Maidens,   Siegfried's   Funeral 
March.      I   know  from   the  experience  of 
one  of  my  pianolist  friends,  how  admirable 
this  course  is.      He  took  it  before  hearing 
the    "  Ring "    for   the   first   time,   with    the 

157 


THE  PIANOLIST 

result  that  he  knew  the  music  and  the  names 
of  all  the  leading  motives,  recognized  them 
whenever  they  occurred  in  the  score,  and  in 
consequence,  enjoyed  the  performance  as 
much  as  if  he  had  become  familiar  with  it 
through  repeated  hearings.  I  may  add  that 
the  catalogue  of  music  rolls  contains  a  com- 
plete collection  of  Wagner's  works,  making 
the  music  of  this  composer  accessible  to  the 
pianolist  whether  he  wishes  to  play  it  for 
study  or  enjoyment 

The  pianolist  holds  in  his  hand  the  future 
of  the  development  of  music  in  this  country. 
The  instrument  on  which  he  plays  is  the 
only  practical  means  as  yet  devised  of  mak- 
ing the  great  masterpieces  of  music  pene- 
trate to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  masses. 
Art  has  to  advance  on  its  own  shoulders. 
"  I  cannot  rest  contentedly  on  the  past,  I 
cannot  take  a  step  forward  without  its  aid." 
The  pianolist  has  both  the  past  and  present 
of  music  at  his  command. 
158 


VIII.     A  FEW  "  DON'TS  "  FOR  PIA- 
NOLISTS. 

BY  way  of  postscript  I  give  here  a  few 
hints  to  pianolists.  General  directions 
on  how  to  play  the  pianola  are  provided 
in  pamphlets  and  circulars  which  can  be 
obtained  without  charge,  and  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  traverse  these.  The  instrument  is 
capable  of  great  brilliancy  and  great  power, 
greater  than  lie  in  the  ten  fingers  of  any 
pianist.  This  very  fact  is  what  has  caused 
the  instrument  to  be  called  "  mechanical." 
But  in  reality  it  is  the  fault  of  the  player, 
because,  carried  away  by  the  capacity  of 
the  instrument,  he  is  apt  in  the  beginning 
to  play  too  loudly  and  too  brilliantly.  One 
of  the  first  don'ts  for  the  pianolist  is  that 
he  refrain  from  putting  the  instrument  to 
the  full  test  of  its — not  really  mechanical 
but  superhuman — capacity  for  brilliancy  and 
power. 

Indeed,    not   only   the   beginner,   but   all 

159 


THE  PIANOLIST 

pianolists  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  chief 
distinction  of  the  instrument  lies  in  its  ex- 
ceeding delicacy.  No  virtuoso  can  play 
as  delicately  and  lightly  and,  at  the  same 
time,  as  distinctly  as  can  the  pianolist  those 
rapid  pianissimo  runs  and  those  exquisite 
traceries  and  ornamentations  which  are 
found  in  modern  music;  all  of  which  does 
not  mean  that  the  pianolist  never  should 
play  loudly  and  brilliantly,  but  that  he 
should  not  allow  himself  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  possibilities  of  the  instrument  in 
these  directions. 

Certain  refinements  of  interpretation 
which  the  pianist  long  has  made  his  own 
also  should  be  observed.  Don't  start  a 
trill  and  keep  it  up  with  an  evenly  sus- 
tained strength  of  tone  and  rapidity  from 
beginning  to  end.  Begin  it  a  shade  slower 
and  a  shade  more  softly  than  the  tempo  and 
dynamic  signs  indicate,  let  it  swell  and  grow 
1 60 


A  FEW  DON'TS 

louder,  then  taper  down,  and  slightly  retard 
the  turn  which  leads  back  to  the  melodic 
phrase.  This  is  not  a  hard-and-fast  rule, 
but  one  which  usually  it  is  safe  to  follow. 
The  pianolist  can  execute  his  trills  with  a 
combination  of  delicacy  and  clearness  that 
is  absolutely  unique. 

Don't  rip  off  runs  as  if  you  were  tearing 
cloth.  Come  down  with  decision  on  the 
first  note,  begin  somewhat  slower  than  the 
indicated  tempo  and  then  increase  the  time 
to  the  proper  acceleration.  This  is  the 
true  virtuoso  effect,  adopted,  no  doubt,  be- 
cause on  the  pianoforte  it  is  easier  to  execute 
a  run  in  this  manner;  and  so,  however 
erroneously,  it  has  come  to  be  considered 
the  genuine  musical  way — showing  that  even 
in  art  we  are  creatures  of  habit. 

Don't  use  the  sustaining  pedal  too  fre- 
quently, not  even  as  frequently  as  indicated 
on  the  rolls.  The  pedal  directions  on  the 

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THE  PIANOLIST 

rolls  follow  those  of  the  printed  sheets  too 
closely.  The  pianist  often  is  obliged  to 
use  the  sustaining  pedal  to  hold  a  note  that 
he  cannot  keep  down  because  his  fingers  are 
otherwise  employed.  But  the  music  rolls 
are  cut  so  that  every  sustained  note  is  held 
down  as  long  as  the  composer  directs  that 
it  should  be.  Remember  too  that  the  term 
"  loud  pedal "  as  applied  to  the  sustaining 
pedal,  as  it  properly  is  called,  is  incorrect. 
This  pedal  sustains  but  does  not  increase  the 
power  of  the  sound  that  is  produced.  That 
effect  is  secured  by  a  stronger  pressure  of 
the  feet  upon  the  pumping  pedals.  In  fact 
by  varying  the  degree  of  pressure  of  the 
feet  on  the  pumping  pedals  the  pianolist 
can  vary  the  degree  of  sound  from  a  whis- 
pered pianissimo  to  the  strongest  fortissimo. 
The  pianolist  should  remember  that,  as 
the  instrument  on  which  he  plays  relieves 
him  of  all  burdens  of  technique  and  enables 
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A  FEW  DON'TS 

him  to  play  anything,  no  matter  how  diffi- 
cult, with  absolute  technical  accuracy,  it  is 
all  the  more  his  duty  to  play  with  as  much 
expression  as  he  can  call  forth  from  his 
inner  nature.  Emotion,  the  power  of  ex- 
pression, the  art  of  interpretation,  can  be 
developed  by  practice  as  well  as  any  other 
latent  capacity.  It  is  an  excellent  plan 
for  the  beginner  to  take  one  piece,  the  Nevin 
waltz  that  I  have  described,  for  example, 
and  play  it  over  many  times,  not  necessarily 
at  the  same  sitting,  in  fact  better  not;  but 
without  attempting  anything  else.  Each 
time  let  the  pianolist  try  to  get  more  mean- 
ing, more  expression  out  of  it  than  he  did 
before.  He  will  find,  if  he  does  this,  that, 
when  he  takes  up  another  composition,  the 
expression,  the  art  of  interpretation,  will 
come  to  him  more  naturally  and  more 
quickly,  until,  from  an  ignorant  beginner, 
he  soon  will  have  developed  into  a  musical 

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THE  PIANOLIST 

artist  who  can  give  himself  and  hundreds 
of  others  the  most  exalted  pleasure — that  of 
listening  to  music,  not  to  mere  playing. 


164 


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